Grouped SPME Comparison of Floral Scent as a Method of Unlocking Phylogenetic Patterns in Volatiles

Adelina Latinovic,Vanessa M Adams,Peter B Mcquillan,David S Nichols

doi:10.3389/fevo.2022.795122

Adelina Latinovic, Vanessa M Adams + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.795122

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Abstract

Global crop production rate has exceeded the availability of pollination services provided by managed honeybees, and habitat loss remains a key factor in the loss of wild pollinators. Revegetation of agricultural land and wild pollination may provide a solution; however, the collection of floral trait data that are correlated to pollinator preferences remains an under studied and complex process. Here, we demonstrate a method for scent analysis, ordination [non-metric dimensional scaling (NMDS)], and clustering outputs that provides a fast and reproducible procedure for a broad grouping of flora based on scent and unlocking characteristic inter-floral patterns. We report the floral profiles of 15 unstudied native Australian plant species and the extent to which they match the commonly cultivated seed crops of Daucus carota L and Brassica rapa L. Through solid-phase microextraction (SPME) paired with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), we identify a set of inter-family shared, common floral volatiles from these plant species as well as unique and characteristic patterns.

Highlights

Pollination is a vital ecosystem service in both natural and agricultural settings
Pollinated crop production has nearly quadrupled in the recent half-century (1961–2007) and concerningly, this growth has not been matched in the global population of the dominant commercial pollinator, the European honeybee Apis mellifera L. (Klein et al, 2007; Aizen and Harder, 2009)
Managed honeybees are at risk from colony collapse disorder, the parasitic mite Varroa destructor, monofloral diets resulting in poor nutrition and declining disease resilience, and pesticide use (Rosenkranz et al, 2010; Staveley et al, 2014; Watson and Stallins, 2016). Given these threats to pollinators, recent research has investigated the potential for revegetation of agricultural land to provide habitat for wild pollinators and the extent to which this may meet crop pollination demand through increased wild pollination

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Pollination is a vital ecosystem service in both natural and agricultural settings. Biotically pollinated plants account for 35% of global crop volume, including crucial high-value seeds, nuts, fruits, and vegetables (Klein et al, 2007). Merits of the SPME method include the ability to isolate floral parts and avoid sampling of undesired green leaf volatiles, portability and reliable storage of samples from fieldwork to lab analysis, and easy reuse of the sampling apparatus (Vas and Vékey, 2004; Tholl et al, 2006) This is useful as obtaining suitable data on floral and vegetation traits can otherwise be a time- and resource-intensive process (Bartual et al, 2019). Wang et al (2020) compared five morphological traits and found that they were only accounted for 22.5% of the preferences driving pollinator visits Integrating these ideas, we examine whether SPME profiling of scent volatiles provides a viable method for rapidly unlocking characteristic patterns between native flora and crop hybrids. We investigate whether non-metric dimensional scaling (NMDS) or hierarchical clustering of SPME results provides a reliable method for rapid species comparison

METHODS

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT