Speaker
Description
Plant secondary (specialized) metabolites play an important role for ecological interaction of organism and responses to environmental factors. Up to now, comprehensive studies of the complex metabolome of whole plant communities are lacking. Little is known with respect to the most abundant plant secondary metabolites, habitat specific metabolite groups and their function, and correlation between chemo- and biodiversity.
To approach these questions, we performed a pilot study to compare the metabolome of two climatically contrasting habitats. For this purpose, the plant community of a humid mesophilic evergreen broadleaf forest and a dry microphyll forest in a mountain region of Cuba were chosen. The metabolite profiles of all plant species within randomly selected plots were analyzed using different analytical methods, including thin-layer chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry. The investigations were supported by DNA barcoding of all collected samples and accompanied by data mining for known natural products and plant species of the region. From a methodical point of view, compliance with the Nagoya regulations posed a main challenge for this experimental approach, as the species addressed could not be defined in advance.
We hypothesize that although rain forests have a high biodiversity and are therefore considered the most valuable source for new natural products (e.g. for medicine), dry areas might provide a higher abundance of natural products with stronger activity effects due to adaption to harsher environmental conditions.
| Status Group | Postdoctoral Researcher |
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