title: Novel chemistry of invasive plants: exotic species have more unique metabolomic profiles than native congeners.
abstract: It is often assumed that exotic plants can become invasive when they possess novel secondary chemistry compared with native plants in the introduced range. Using untargeted metabolomic fingerprinting, we compared a broad range of metabolites of six successful exotic plant species and their native congeners of the family Asteraceae. Our results showed that plant chemistry is highly species-specific and diverse among both exotic and native species. Nonetheless, the exotic species had on average a higher total number of metabolites and more species-unique metabolites compared with their native congeners. Herbivory led to an overall increase in metabolites in all plant species. Generalist herbivore performance was lower on most of the exotic species compared with the native species. We conclude that high chemical diversity and large phytochemical uniqueness of the exotic species could be indicative of biological invasion potential.
authors: Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) P.O. Box 50, 6700 AB, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; Molecular Interaction Ecology, Institute of Water and Wetland Research (IWWR), Radboud University Nijmegen P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL, Nijmegen, The Netherlands ; Plant Ecology, University of Tübingen Auf der Morgenstelle 3, 72076, Tübingen, Germany.
authors: Mirka
authors: M
authors: Macel
authors: Plant Research International, Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR) P.O. Box 17, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; Centre for BioSystems and Genomics P.O. box 98, 6700 AB, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors: Ric C H
authors: RC
authors: de Vos
authors: Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) P.O. Box 50, 6700 AB, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; Department of Analytical Chemistry, Radboud University Nijmegen Heyendaalseweg 135, 6525 AJ, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors: Jeroen J
authors: JJ
authors: Jansen
authors: Department of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) P.O. Box 50, 6700 AB, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; Laboratory of Nematology, Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR) P.O. Box 8123, 6700 ES, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors: Wim H
authors: WH
authors: van der Putten
authors: Molecular Interaction Ecology, Institute of Water and Wetland Research (IWWR), Radboud University Nijmegen P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors: Nicole M
authors: NM
authors: van Dam
keywords: Asteraceae; LC-MS; Mamestra brassicae; Senecio; Solidago; herbivory; metabolomics; novel weapons; range expanding; secondary metabolites