Highly Species-Specific Foliar Metabolomes of Diverse Woody Species and Relationships with the Leaf Economics Spectrum.

Rabea Schweiger,Jordi Martínez-Vilalta,Luca Da Sois,Caroline Müller,Eva Castells

doi:10.3390/cells10030644

Abstract

Plants show an extraordinary diversity in chemical composition and are characterized by different functional traits. However, relationships between the foliar primary and specialized metabolism in terms of metabolite numbers and composition as well as links with the leaf economics spectrum have rarely been explored. We investigated these relationships in leaves of 20 woody species from the Mediterranean region grown as saplings in a common garden, using a comparative ecometabolomics approach that included (semi-)polar primary and specialized metabolites. Our analyses revealed significant positive correlations between both the numbers and relative composition of primary and specialized metabolites. The leaf metabolomes were highly species-specific but in addition showed some phylogenetic imprints. Moreover, metabolomes of deciduous species were distinct from those of evergreens. Significant relationships were found between the primary metabolome and nitrogen content and carbon/nitrogen ratio, important traits of the leaf economics spectrum, ranging from acquisitive (mostly deciduous) to conservative (evergreen) leaves. A comprehensive understanding of various leaf traits and their coordination in different plant species may facilitate our understanding of plant functioning in ecosystems. Chemodiversity is thereby an important component of biodiversity.

Highlights

Introduction published maps and institutional affilPlants produce an astonishing diversity of organic molecules in terms of biosynthetic origin, structure and function
We found indications for phylogenetic imprints, i.e., there were many features that exclusively occurred in the members of certain plant families (Figure 2)
The Salicaceae species P. alba (PA) and S. cinerea (SC) shared four features measured per GC-FID (i.e., 1.0% of the features measured with this analytical platform) that did not occur in any other species

Summary

Introduction

Plants produce an astonishing diversity of organic molecules in terms of biosynthetic origin, structure and function. The primary metabolites, e.g., sugars, organic acids and amino acids, are essential for maintaining cellular homeostasis and are involved in growth, development and reproduction. Less than 10,000 primary metabolites exist, which are found to be more or less ubiquitous in all plants [2]. The biosynthetic pathways for primary and specialized metabolites are closely interlinked, as specialized metabolites are synthesized from the primary ones [6,7]. Diversification in primary metabolites contributes to a high chemodiversity of specialized metabolites [7], while other mechanisms reinforced the diversification of the specialized metabolism iations

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