Variations of Secondary Metabolites among Natural Populations of Sub-Antarctic Ranunculus Species Suggest Functional Redundancy and Versatility

• Published in: Plants
• Main Authors: Labarrere, Bastien, Prinzing, Andreas, Dorey, Thomas, Chesneau, Emeline, Hennion, Françoise
• Other Authors: Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution Rennes (ECOBIO), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Rennes (OSUR)-Institut Ecologie et Environnement (INEE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Rennes 1 (UR1), Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES), Institut für Systematische und Evolutionäre Botanik, : This research was funded by INSTITUT POLAIRE FRANÇAIS IPEV, grants 1116 (PlantEvol) and 136 (Ecobio). B.L. was supported by a PhD grant from Ministry of Research and Education (France). The APC was funded by CNRS LIA “AntarctPlantAdapt”
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: redundancy; sub- Antarctic plants; Ranunculus biternatus; Ranunculus pseudotrullifolius; Ranunculus moseleyi; natural populations; quercetins; secondary metabolite variation; environment; amines; [SDV.BV.BOT]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Vegetal Biology/Botanics; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; Antarctic; Îles Kerguelen; Kerguelen; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02192278; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02192278v2/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02192278v2/file/Labarrere_et_al.%202019.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants8070234

International audience Plants produce a high diversity of metabolites which help them sustain environmental stresses and are involved in local adaptation. However, shaped by both the genome and the environment, the patterns of variation of the metabolome in nature are difficult to decipher. Few studies have explored the relative parts of geographical region versus environment or phenotype in metabolomic variability within species and none have discussed a possible effect of the region on the correlations between metabolites and environments or phenotypes. In threesub-Antarctic Ranunculus species, we examined the role of region in metabolite differences and in the relationship between individual compounds and environmental conditions or phenotypic traits.Populations of three Ranunculus species were sampled across similar environmental gradients in two distinct geographical regions in îles Kerguelen. Two metabolite classes were studied, amines (quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography and fluorescence spectrophotometry) and flavonols (quantified by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry). Depending on regions, the same environment or the same trait may be related to different metabolites, suggesting metabolite redundancy within species. In several cases, a given metabolite showed different or even opposite relations with the same environmental condition or thesame trait across the two regions, suggesting metabolite versatility within species. Our results suggest that metabolites may be functionally redundant and versatile within species, both in their response to environments and in their relation with the phenotype. These findings open new perspectives for understanding evolutionary responses of plants to environmental changes.