Chemodiversity as part of the plant trait space and economics spectrum

对生物多样性的迷恋与化学多样性的吸引力是平行的，化学多样性是植物表型的一个未被充分探索但重要的特性。在第一个资助期，我们引入了R包化学多样性来量化代谢物混合物的化学多样性。这条统计管道使研究人员不仅可以量化化学多样性的丰富度和均匀度成分，还可以量化差异成分。考虑生化差异提供了对化学多样性的生态和进化重要性的更完整的理解。因此，RU的几个项目使用或将使用我们的R包chemodiv来分析他们的数据。此外，我们还撰写了一篇综述文章，讨论了与化学多样性相关的一些主题，包括化学多样性的统计量化信息、在文献中的应用以及未来的发展方向。作为这项工作的核心组成部分，我们提供了一个决策树来确定哪些化学多样性指数应该用于测试不同生物学背景下的各种假设。重要的是，RU的所有成员都贡献了关于化学多样性不同方面的作用的想法和观点，这反映在手稿中。第二个资助期的主要目标是：1)了解植物化学多样性的全球分布以及影响其的生物和非生物因素，为实证工作项目提供重要参考（P1-P7）。这一全球分析将有助于得出植物应对环境胁迫的策略。2) P10还将通过增加化学多样性作为植物经济学谱的一个额外维度，提供一个将化学多样性与植物策略和功能联系起来的框架。这一分析将揭示化学多样性在植物的表型和功能以及它们的生态策略中是互补的还是冗余的。这个框架将阐明生态和化学表型进化中的权衡和限制。3)此外，利用P1-P7的数据以及化学多样性-可塑性实验（COR项目）对植物对干旱和草食的化学反应，将化学多样性的种内变异性映射到植物经济学光谱上，以测试反应是否具有物种特异性和/或胁迫特异性。同样，P9模拟的虚拟植物的种内变异性可以映射到性状空间，以探索它们与“真实”植物和多物种背景下的反应。

The fascination for biodiversity is paralleled by the appeal of chemodiversity, which is an underexplored but important property of the plants’ phenotypes. In the first funding period, we have introduced the R package chemodiv to quantify chemodiversity of mixtures of metabolites. This statistical pipeline allows researchers not only to quantify the richness and evenness component of chemodiversity, but also the disparity component. Considering biochemical disparity provides a more complete understanding of the ecological and evolutionary importance of chemodiversity. Accordingly, several projects of the RU used or will use our R package chemodiv to analyse their data. Additionally, we worked on a review article that addresses a number of topics related to chemodiversity, including information on its statistical quantification, its use in the literature, as well as future directions. As a central component of this work, we are providing a decision tree to determine which chemodiversity indices should be used to test various hypotheses in different biological contexts. Importantly, all members of the RU contributed ideas and perspectives about the role of different aspects of chemodiversity, which is reflected in the manuscript. The major goals of the second funding period are 1) to understand the global distribution of plant chemodiversity as well as the biotic and abiotic factors influencing it, which will serve as an important reference for the empirically working projects (P1-P7). This global analysis will allow conclusions about plant strategies in coping with environmental stresses. 2) P10 will also provide a framework to relate chemodiversity to plant strategies and functions by adding chemodiversity as an additional dimension of the plant economics spectrum. This analysis will reveal whether chemodiversity represents a complementary or redundant part in the plants’ phenotypes and functions and thus their ecological strategy. This framework will elucidate trade-offs and constrains in the ecology and evolution of the chemical phenotype. 3) Furthermore, by using the data of P1-P7 as well as the chemodiversity-plasticity experiment (COR project) on phytochemical responses to drought and herbivory, intraspecific variability in chemodiversity will be mapped onto the plant economics spectrum to test whether responses are species- and/or stressor-specific. Likewise, the intraspecific variability of virtual plants as simulated in P9 can be mapped onto the trait space to explore their responses in relation to “real” plants and in a multi-species context.