Effects of elevated temperature on chemistry of an invasive plant, its native congener and their herbivores

Aims Climatic warming affects plant growth and physiology, yet how warming alters chemistry in invasive plants and indirectly affects herbivorous insects remains largely unknown. Here, we explored warming-induced changes in leaf chemistry of the invasive plant Alternanthera philoxeroides and its native congener A. sessilis, and further examined how these changes affected the performance of the herbivores, Cassida piperata and Spodoptera litura. Methods We conducted a simulated warming experiment to address its effects on 13 leaf chemical traits of A. philoxeroides and A. sessilis. We measured growth and development time of two herbivores reared on plants from warming or ambient controls. Important Findings Warming significantly affected leaf chemistry composition for both the invasive and native Alternanthera. Warming decreased nitrogen concentration in A. philoxeroides and increased total flavonoid and total phenol concentration in A. sessilis. The effects of warming on nutrients (i.e. fructose, sucrose, total soluble sugar and starch) varied with individual chemicals and plant species. Weight of C. piperata pupal and S. litura larval reared on warming-treated A. sessilis significantly decreased compared to non-warmed control, and a similar pattern was observed for weight of S. litura larval feeding on warming-treated A. philoxeroides. In addition, warming-treated A. sessilis significantly prolonged larval development time of S. litura. These results indicate that warming can directly affect the leaf chemistry in both invasive plant and its native congener, but these effects vary by species. Such differences in warming-induced changes in plant chemistry could indirectly affect herbivorous insects associated with the invasive and native plants.

The evolution of trait variance creates a tension between species diversity and functional diversity

It seems intuitive that species diversity promotes functional diversity. For example, more plant species imply more diverse leaf chemistry and thus more kinds of food for herbivores. Here we argue that the evolution of functional trait variance challenges this view. We show that trait-based eco-evolutionary processes force species to evolve narrower trait breadths in tightly packed communities, in their effort to avoid competition with neighboring species. This effect is so strong as to reduce overall trait space coverage, overhauling the expected positive relationship between species- and functional diversity. Empirical data from Galápagos land snail communities proved consistent with this claim. As a consequence, trait data from species-poor communities may misjudge functional diversity in species-rich ones, and vice versa.

CO2 driven changes in leaf biochemistry may have influenced fire behaviour at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary

<p>The Triassic-Jurassic Boundary marks one of the largest mass extinction events of the Phanerozoic. Across the boundary, a rise in carbon-dioxide levels and global temperatures are hypothesized to have driven significant environmental changes inducing a major floral turnover, causing vegetation structure, composition and leaf morphology to alter, and inferred wildfire activity to increase.</p><p>An example of these changes can be observed at the Astartekløft site in East Greenland, where previous work identified a change in flora from broad-leaved conifer dominated to an assemblage dominated by narrow leaved conifers, coeval with a five-fold increase in charcoal abundances.</p><p>Variations in carbon-dioxide concentrations have been shown to be capable of influencing leaf chemistry. It could therefore be hypothesized that carbon-dioxide-driven climate changes across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary may have been capable of not only inducing changes in leaf morphological fuel properties, but also variations in biochemical properties that are both capable of altering wildfire behaviour.</p><p>In order to assess this, we selected three plant species that have ancient evolutionary origins and correspond to the dominant leaf morphotypes of litter-forming vegetation observed at the Astartekløft site across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. We grew these species in current ambient and high carbon-dioxide (Triassic-Jurassic boundary) atmospheric conditions and analysed variations in the chemistry of the leaves, using gas chromatography mass spectrometry, and assessed aspects of their flammability using micro-calorimetry. These data were used to inform a fire behaviour model to produce estimates of variations in fire behaviour, such as surface fire spread, flame length and fireline intensity across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary at Astartekløft.</p><p>Our results reveal a change in leaf chemistry that is expressed as a suppression of volatile content in the three species grown under elevated carbon-dioxide concentrations, compared to those grown under ambient conditions. By accounting for these variations in a fire behaviour model, we estimate that fire behaviour was more extreme prior to the increase in carbon-dioxide across the boundary, suggesting a switch from a period of infrequent but intense fast-moving surface fires during the Triassic, to a period of frequent but low intensity and slow spreading fires during the earliest Jurassic. Our results indicate that that increases in carbon-dioxide concentrations may have impacted leaf chemistry and thus flammability, and may therefore have played an interesting role in determining fire behaviour characteristics during this marked period of Earth’s past.  </p>

Asparagine Synthesis During Tobacco Leaf Curing

Senescence is a genetically controlled mechanism that modifies leaf chemistry. This involves significant changes in the accumulation of carbon- and nitrogen-containing compounds, including asparagine through the activity of asparagine synthetases. These enzymes are required for nitrogen re-assimilation and remobilization in plants; however, their mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, we report how leaf curing—a senescence-induced process that allows tobacco leaves to dry out—modifies the asparagine metabolism. We show that leaf curing strongly alters the concentration of the four main amino acids, asparagine, glutamine, aspartate, and glutamate. We demonstrate that detached tobacco leaf or stalk curing has a different impact on the expression of asparagine synthetase genes and accumulation of asparagine. Additionally, we characterize the main asparagine synthetases involved in the production of asparagine during curing. The expression of ASN1 and ASN5 genes is upregulated during curing. The ASN1-RNAi and ASN5-RNAi tobacco plant lines display significant alterations in the accumulation of asparagine, glutamine, and aspartate relative to wild-type plants. These results support the idea that ASN1 and ASN5 are key regulators of asparagine metabolism during leaf curing.