Chemical ecology: can it survive without natural products chemistry?

Abstract

New disciplines arise by convergence of interests. Chemical ecology is the product of a partnership between biologists and natural products chemists united by a shared vision and empowered by complementary skills. The vision stems from the realization that all organisms emit chemical signals and that all, in their respective ways, respond to the chemical emissions of others. Nature, in accord with this construct, is a dynamic assemblage of vast complexity, driven by interactions that are, for the most part, mediated by molecules. The natural products chemist brings to the partnership the ability to decipher these chemical signals. Not surprisingly, the collaboration between the chemical ecologist and the natural products chemist is a close one (see Fig. 1). Fig. 1. Chemical ecology and natural products chemistry are linked in a productive partnership aimed at clarifying the chemical basis of ecological and behavioral interactions in nature. To curtail natural products chemistry now is to put on hold the acquisition of this fundamental knowledge. Chemical ecology came into its own in the midst of the molecular biological revolution, in the 1950s, at the same time that vastly improved techniques and instruments came on line by which chemicals could be isolated and characterized. Natural products chemistry traditionally had been applied in its orientation. …