Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
Introduction
Fifty years ago, when Fraenkel (1959) first placed plant secondary metabolites into an ecological context, the myriad of anthropogenic forces that today influence ecosystem processes at a global scale were poorly recognised, if not altogether unknown. We now know that factors such as atmospheric change, climate warming, invasive species, terrestrial and aquatic eutrophication, and land use are having profound and extensive impacts on the Earth’s ecosystems. Less well appreciated, however, are the central roles played by PSMs in many of those processes.
Plant secondary metabolites respond to global environmental change; perpetuate, via interaction networks, the consequences of global change; and feed back to influence future global change (Lindroth, 2010). For example, the carbon cycle, which strongly influences climate, is itself influenced by the chemical matrices into which plants deposit carbon. Rates of photosynthesis are affected by atmospheric CO2 levels, and subsequent allocation of photosynthates to carbohydrate, cellulose, lignin and tannin pools influences long-term carbon sequestration.
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