A5058658030- Plant and animal studies
- Plant biochemistry and biosynthesis
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Plant Parasitism and Resistance
- Natural product bioactivities and synthesis
- Insect-Plant Interactions and Control
- Traditional and Medicinal Uses of Annonaceae
- Allelopathy and phytotoxic interactions
- Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
- Botany and Plant Ecology Studies
- Phytochemistry and Biological Activities
- Plant and Fungal Species Descriptions
- Bioactive natural compounds
- Forest Insect Ecology and Management
- Agriculture, Soil, Plant Science
- Natural Compound Pharmacology Studies
- Plant Ecology and Soil Science
- Various Chemistry Research Topics
- Essential Oils and Antimicrobial Activity
- Plant Toxicity and Pharmacological Properties
- Plant Diversity and Evolution
- Magnetism in coordination complexes
- Plant Taxonomy and Phylogenetics
- Agronomic Practices and Intercropping Systems
- Chemical Synthesis and Characterization
University of California, Berkeley
2013-2023
University of Montana
2022
University of Utah
2004-2022
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
2006
University of Alaska Fairbanks
1999-2006
Plants and their herbivores constitute more than half of the organisms in tropical forests. Therefore, a better understanding evolution plant defenses against may be central for our biodiversity. Here, we address antiherbivore possible contribution to coexistence Neotropical tree genus Inga (Fabaceae). has >300 species, radiated recently, is frequently one most diverse abundant genera at given site. For 37 species from Panama Peru characterized developmental, ant, chemical herbivores. We...
Herbivores are often implicated in the generation of extraordinarily diverse tropical flora. One hypothesis linking enemies to plant diversification posits that evolution novel defenses allows plants escape their and expand ranges. When range expansion involves entering a new habitat type, this could accelerate defense if habitats contain different assemblages herbivores and/or divergent resource availabilities affect allocation. We evaluated by investigating two sister specialist ecotypes...
Summary Plants are widely recognized as chemical factories, with each species producing dozens to hundreds of unique secondary metabolites. These compounds shape the interactions between plants and their natural enemies. We explore evolutionary patterns processes by which generate diversity, from evolving novel profiles. characterized profile one‐third tropical rainforest trees in genus Inga ( c. 100, Fabaceae) using ultraperformance liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry‐based metabolomics...
In the recently radiated genus Inga (Fabaceae), few nucleotide substitutions have accumulated among species, yet large divergences occurred in defensive phenotypes, suggesting strong selection by herbivores. We compared herbivory and defenses of young leaves for I. goldmanii, a more derived species that follows "defense" strategy, umbellifera, basal an "escape" strategy. The two suffered similar rates (22% leaf area eaten during expansion) but were attacked different communities goldmanii...
Little is known concerning the mechanisms promoting or limiting coexistence of functionally divergent species in hyperdiverse tropical tree genera. Density-dependent enemy attacks have been proposed to be a major driver for local chemically congeneric species. At same time, we expect soil conditions favor sharing similar functional traits related resource use strategies, while environmental heterogeneity would promote diversity these at both and large spatial scales. To test how mediate...
Young leaves of tropical forest trees experience far higher herbivory pressure than mature the same species. Selection on young has led to diverse forms defense chemical expression. Though most allelochemicals are secondary metabolites, allelochemic function for a primary metabolite remains possibility. We recently observed this phenomenon in Inga umbellifera , which accumulate protein amino acid l‐tyrosine very high levels. isolated from Panama and characterized it using spectroscopic...
In addition to the free protein amino acid l-tyrosine, expanding young leaves of Inga laurina accumulate high concentrations three new depsides, galloyl, m-digalloyl, and m-trigalloyl l-tyrosine (1, 2, 3). The structures these compounds were determined on basis their spectroscopic properties through degradation derivatization experiments. They occur in at following dry-weight mass percentages: tyrosine, 10.4%; 1, 3.1%; 5.0%; 3, 1.3%. These are most consistent with chemical defense during...
A combination of solid-state (13)C NMR tensor data and DFT computational methods is utilized to predict the conformation in disordered methyl α-L-rhamnofuranoside. This previously uncharacterized solid found be crystalline consists at least six distinct conformations that exchange on kHz time scale. total 66 model structures were evaluated, identified as being consistent with experimental data. All feasible have very similar carbon oxygen positions differ most significantly OH hydrogen...
Protium subserratum (Burseraceae) is a neotropical tree species that comprised of several habitat-specific ecotypes having distinct defense chemical profiles. A previously unknown triterpene, 25,30-dicarboxy-26,27,28,29-tetraacetoxy-10,11,14,15-tetrahydrosqualene, was isolated from P. young leaf tissue one ecotype growing in Peru. The structure 1 determined by spectroscopic study, including and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance experiments.
Introduction Plants and their insect herbivores represent a large fraction of the species in Amazonian forests are often directly implicated origin maintenance biodiversity at local regional scales. How these interactions may change over geographic distance is unknown because very few studies have investigated herbivore fauna defense chemicals any host plant multiple sites tropical forests. One hypothesis, Geographic Mosaic Theory Coevolution, predicts that if assemblages turn different...