"Most people are familiar with the word biodiversity, but 'chemodiversity,'—the extraordinary tapestry of natural chemicals found in plants—is just as important for life, the appearance of new species and the survival of many different ecosystems on the earth" . . .

Trying to make the best of their real estate, plants rely on an impressive arsenal of volatile and nonvolatile molecules, which diffuse easily through the membranes of the cells that produce them to communicate and interact with the outside world. Often highly aromatic and exceedingly specific for a particular ecological niche, these chemicals attract pollinators, summon natural predators of pests, defend against competitors or, through their antimicrobial properties, protect against natural plant pathogens such as fungi and bacteria. . .

For centuries, mankind has exploited this vast reservoir of natural chemicals for the discovery of new pharmaceuticals to treat disease. "Understanding the chemistry and evolutionary principles that underlie this extraordinary biological diversity will show us how to alter biosynthetic pathways to equip crops with natural and environmentally friendly defenses against pests and diseases, to produce new pharmaceuticals, to enhance levels of naturally occurring health-promoting nutrients or to speed up plant adaptation in the face of global climatic change," . . .

For the current study, postdoctoral researcher and first author Paul O'Maille, Ph.D., probed the metabolic pathways that members of the nightshade family, which includes tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and henbane, use to produce terpenes—compounds that impart aromatic odors and flavors to foods. In many cases, they are also modified in the plant to produce so-called phytoalexins, which are natural forms of anti-fungal and antimicrobial compounds found in many different plants. . .

Now the Salk researchers are planning to extend their studies to other members of the nightshade family, including tomato, potato, pepper and eggplant, to see how the simplified laboratory system is recapitulated by Mother Nature.

"This latter much larger study will take us all over the globe to sample organisms and ecosystems harboring this large family of agriculturally important plants,"

I think that this is an important shift of focus. Advocacy for biodiversity usually involves a lot of hand waving and semi-spiritual pleading. Drilling down to the chemodiversity within families and species, showing the variation in immunities and nutritional value, elevates such advocacy into the realm of science and offers pragmatic support for efforts to catalogue and preserve such diversity while we continue to investigate.

Breeding improved cultivars of agricultural plants will be much faster and much, much more effective when we have better information about the internal attributes of source plants. In the past this has been a cumbersome and slow process which forced developers to narrowly focus on what they saw as the most important attributes, such as yield. It should be ever more possible to include consideration for robustness and disease resistance, nutritional value, drought tolerance, and nutrient uptake efficiency as well as yield.