Metabolite profiling of Douglas‐fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) field trials reveals strong environmental and weak genetic variation

Abstract

Summary• The primary objective of this study was to assess metabolomics for its capacity to discern biological variation among 10 full-sib families of a Douglas-fir tree breeding population, replicated on two sites.• The differential accumulation of small metabolites in developing xylem was examined through metabolite profiles (139 metabolites common to 181 individual trees) generated by gas chromatography mass spectrometry and a series of statistical analyses that incorporated family, site, and tree growth and quantitative phenotypic wood traits (wood density, microfibril angle, wood chemistry and fiber morphology).• Multivariate discriminant, canonical discriminant and factor analyses and broadsense heritabilities revealed that metabolic and phenotypic traits alike were strongly related to site, while similar associations relating to genetic (family) structure were weak in comparison. Canonical correlation analysis subsequently identified correlations between specific phenotypic traits (i.e. tree growth, fibre morphology and wood chemistry) and metabolic traits (i.e. carbohydrate and lignin biosynthetic metabolites), demonstrating a coherent relationship between genetics, metabolism, environmental and phenotypic expression in wood-forming tissue.• The association between cambial metabolites and tree phenotype, as revealed by metabolite profiling, demonstrates the value of metabolomics for systems biology approaches to understanding tree growth and secondary cell wall biosynthesis in plants.

Metabolite profiles of maize leaves in drought, heat and combined stress field trials reveal the relationship between metabolism and grain yield

“…There are some previously reported correlation analyses in field studies on metabolite levels that corroborate this statement (Robinson et al, 2007;Degenkolbe et al, 2013). That said, the coefficient values of most of the correlations discussed here range from 20.77 to 20.45 with P values lower than 0.05 or 0.001, which can be considered as highly reliable.…”

Metabolic adaptations in a range expanding arthropod

“…Long-lasting transgenerational plasticity can, however, not be fully excluded and we therefore refer further to (epi)genetic factors (Verhoeven et al 2016). Although (epi)genetic factors are generally considered less determining than environmental factors (Robinson et al 2007;Frank et al 2009;Matsuda et al 2012), our results demonstrate a clear (epi)-genetic signal of metabolic differentiation along T. urticae's invasion gradient. We acknowledge, however, that we cannot exclude neutral processes, such as, for example, serial bottlenecks -including surfing mutations (Klopfstein et al 2006;Travis et al 2007) as potential (co)sources of the found latitudinal metabolomic patterns.…”

Integrating transcriptome and target metabolome variability in doubled haploids of Allium cepa for abiotic stress protection

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