Geschmack ist vorhersagbar: Mit FlavorMiner. FlavorMiner heißt das Tool, das IPB-Chemiker und Partner aus Kolumbien jüngst entwickelt haben. Das Programm kann, basierend auf maschinellem Lernen (KI), anhand der…
Seit Februar 2021 bietet Wolfgang Brandt, ehemaliger Leiter der Arbeitsgruppe Computerchemie am IPB, sein Citizen Science-Projekt zur Pilzbestimmung an. Dafür hat er in regelmäßigen Abständen öffentliche Vorträge zur Vielfalt…
Global change exposes forest ecosystems to many risks including novel climatic conditions, increased frequency of climatic extremes and sudden emergence and spread of pests and pathogens. At the same time, forest landscape restoration has regained global attention as an integral strategy for climate change mitigation. Owing to unpredictable future risks and the need for new forests that provide multiple ecosystem services, mixed-species forests have been advocated for this purpose. However, the successful establishment of mixed forests requires intrinsic knowledge of biodiversity\'s role for forest ecosystem functioning. In this respect, a better understanding of tree-tree interactions and how they contribute to observed positive tree species richness effects on key ecosystem functions is critical. Here, we review the current knowledge of the underlying mechanisms of tree-tree interactions and argue that positive net biodiversity effects at the community scale may emerge from the dominance of positive over negative interactions at the local neighbourhood scale. In a second step, we demonstrate how tree-tree interactions and the immediate tree neighbourhood\'s role can be systematically assessed in a tree diversity experiment. The expected results will improve predictions about the effects of tree interactions on ecosystem functioning based on general principles. We argue that this knowledge is urgently required to guide the design of tree species mixtures for the successful establishment of newly planted forests.
Publikation
Böttcher, C.; von Roepenack-Lahaye, E.; Schmidt, J.; Schmotz, C.; Neumann, S.; Scheel, D.; Clemens, S.;Metabolome Analysis of Biosynthetic Mutants Reveals a Diversity of Metabolic Changes and Allows Identification of a Large Number of New Compounds in ArabidopsisPlant Physiol.1472107-2120(2008)DOI: 10.1104/pp.108.117754
Metabolomics is facing a major challenge: the lack of knowledge about metabolites present in a given biological system. Thus, large-scale discovery of metabolites is considered an essential step toward a better understanding of plant metabolism. We show here that the application of a metabolomics approach generating structural information for the analysis of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) mutants allows the efficient cataloging of metabolites. Fifty-six percent of the features that showed significant differences in abundance between seeds of wild-type, transparent testa4, and transparent testa5 plants could be annotated. Seventy-five compounds were structurally characterized, 21 of which could be identified. About 40 compounds had not been known from Arabidopsis before. Also, the high-resolution analysis revealed an unanticipated expansion of metabolic conversions upstream of biosynthetic blocks. Deficiency in chalcone synthase results in the increased seed-specific biosynthesis of a range of phenolic choline esters. Similarly, a lack of chalcone isomerase activity leads to the accumulation of various naringenin chalcone derivatives. Furthermore, our data provide insight into the connection between p-coumaroyl-coenzyme A-dependent pathways. Lack of flavonoid biosynthesis results in elevated synthesis not only of p-coumarate-derived choline esters but also of sinapate-derived metabolites. However, sinapoylcholine is not the only accumulating end product. Instead, we observed specific and sophisticated changes in the complex pattern of sinapate derivatives.