Macroevolutionary chemical escalation in an ancient plant-herbivore arms race.

ABSTRACT: A central paradigm in the field of plant-herbivore interactions is that the diversity and complexity of secondary compounds in plants have intensified over evolutionary time, resulting in the great variety of secondary products that currently exists. Unfortunately, testing of this proposal has been very limited. We analyzed the volatile chemistry of 70 species of the tropical plant genus Bursera and used a molecular phylogeny to test whether the species' chemical diversity or complexity have escalated. The results confirm that as new species diverged over time they tended to be armed not only with more compounds/species, but also with compounds that could potentially be more difficult for herbivores to adapt to because they belong to an increasing variety of chemical pathways. Overall chem

SUBMITTER: Becerra JX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2775328 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature