1 research outputs found
Ecological metabolomics: overview of current developments and future challenges.
35 páginas, 4 tablas, 1 figura.Ecometabolomics, which aims to analyze the
metabolome, the total number of metabolites and its shifts
in response to environmental changes, is gaining importance in ecological studies because of the increasing use of
new technical advances, such as modern HNMR spectrometers and GC-MS coupled to bioinformatic advances.
We review here the state of the art and the perspectives of
ecometabolomics. The studies available demonstrate ecometabolomic techniques have great sensitivity in detecting
the phenotypic mechanisms and key molecules underlying
organism responses to abiotic environmental changes to
biotic interactions. But such studies are still scarce, and in
most cases they are limited to the direct effects of a single
abiotic factor or of biotic interactions between two trophic
levels under controlled conditions. Several exciting challenges remain to be achieved through the use of
ecometabolomics in field conditions, involving more than
two trophic levels, or combining the effects of abiotic
gradients with intra- and inter-specific relationships. The
coupling of ecometabolomic studies with genomics,
transcriptomics, ecosystem stoichiometry, community
biology and biogeochemistry may provide a further step
forward in many areas of ecological sciences, including
stress responses, species lifestyle, life history variation,
population structure, trophic interaction, nutrient cycling,
ecological niche and global changeThis research was supported by the Spanish
Government project CGL2006-04025/BOS, CGC2010-17172 and
Consolider-Ingenio Montes (CSD2008-00040), by the Catalan Government project SGR 2009-458, and by the European project NEU
NITROEUROPE GOCE017841.Peer reviewe