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Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis (Jones, Hill, Allen)) is a living fossil, known only through fossil records until its 1994 discovery in Australia. Wollemi Pine is closely related to Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla (Salisb.) Franco), making it an interesting system to study metabolic evolution. We employed untargeted liquid chromatography mass spectrometry-based (LC-MS) metabolomics, with chemometrics, pathway analysis, and our novel plant growth regulator (PGR) putative identification tool (HormonomicsDB), to explore the metabolomes of both species. We identified PGR conjugates and found cytokinin, zeatin, and brassinosteroid pathways to be overrepresented in Wollemi pine tissues, suggesting these PGRs play an important role in its survival. Melatonin, a proposed ancient and stress-related PGR, was not identified in untargeted analysis of either species. Based on our untargeted results, we employed targeted LC-MS to quantify brassinolide and confirm the absence or presence of melatonin in Wollemi and Norfolk Island pine. Both species had similar concentrations of brassinolide, while Wollemi pine had significantly higher melatonin levels than Norfolk Island pine. High levels of melatonin and brassinolide in Wollemi pine supports the hypothesis that these are ancient PGRs that conferred an evolutionary advantage in Wollemi, allowing it to persist. Key words: Wollemi pine, melatonin, brassinosteroids, plant growth regulator evolution, untargeted metabolomics, targeted metabolomics, 1. Introduction Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis (Jones, Hill, Allen)) is an ancient conifer first discovered in 1994 by canyon explorers in Wollemi National Park in New South Wales, Australia (Jones [...]

Natural health products in North America represent a $9.6 billion USD industry that has seen increased demands, particularly in products for immune support and in anti-viral supplements as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been estimated that approximately 40% of the plant raw materials used in natural health products are wild harvested each year, but exact data are missing for many species. Our data show that there are at least 1445 medicinal plant species harvested for commercial products in Canada, and 1217 of these are native species. Medicinal plants and non-timber forest crops are also increasingly impacted by climate change as suitable growing areas shift. To ensure long-term species survival in the wild, it is necessary to generate accurate information about the distribution of wild populations, the need for conservation, and the development of sustainable methods. Our objective was to provide a preliminary assessment of the conservation status of Canadian medicinal plants by analyzing the available data resources. Key words: Canadian medicinal plant, Canadian native species, conservation, NatureServe database, botanical commodities. En Amérique du Nord, les produits de santé naturels représentent une industrie de 9,6 $ milliards de dollars américains dont la demande est en croissance, notamment pour les produits de soutien immunitaire et les suppléments antiviraux en réponse à la pandémie de COVID-19. L'on estime qu'environ 40% des matières premières végétales utilisées dans les produits de santé naturels sont récoltées à l'état sauvage chaque année, mais les données exactes manquent pour de nombreuses espèces. Les données colligées par les auteurs montrent qu'il existe au moins 1445 espèces de plantes médicinales récoltées pour des produits commerciaux au Canada et que 1217 d'entre elles sont des espèces indigènes. Les plantes médicinales et les cultures forestières non ligneuses sont également de plus en plus touchées par les changements climatiques, car les zones de croissance appropriées se déplacent. Afin d'assurer la survie à long terme des espèces dans la nature, il est nécessaire de générer des informations exactes sur la distribution des populations sauvages, le besoin de conservation et le développement de méthodes durables. L'objectif des auteurs était de fournir une évaluation préliminaire de l'état de conservation des plantes médicinales canadiennes en analysant les ressources de données disponibles. [Traduit par la Rédaction] Mots-clés : plante médicinale canadienne, espèce indigène canadienne, conservation, base de données NatureServe, produits botaniques., Introduction Medicinal plants are used widely as both traditional medicines and natural health products. The consumption of natural health products in North America represents a $9.6 billion USD industry, which [...]

It is difficult to understand why arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities change over time. The role of host identity confounds our understanding of successional changes in AM fungal communities because hosts exert strong selective pressure on their root-associated microbes. In this study we looked at the AM fungi associated with a long-lived perennial breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg) to see how AM communities change over the life span of a single, long-lived host. Using 454 high-throughput sequencing, we found evidence that older trees had more AM fungal taxa than younger trees and were associated with different AM fungal communities, but these differences were not apparent early in the life cycle. Older trees were dominated by species of Rhizophagus, whereas younger trees and genets were dominated by species of Glomus. Some taxa were only detected in older trees (e.g., Funneliformis) or genets (e.g., Racocetra and Scutellospora), indicating that certain AM fungal taxa may serve as 'indicators' of the successional age of the fungal community. These results provide important information about a poorly studied system and give insight into how AM communities change over longer time scales. Key words: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, succession, breadfruit, root microbiota, community. Il est difficile de comprendre pourquoi les communautes fongiques de mycorhizes a arbuscules (MA) changent en fonction du temps. Le role de l'identite de l'hote obscurcit notre comprehension des changements seriaux dans les communautes fongiques de MA car l'hote exerce une pression selective importante sur les microbes associes a ses racines. Dans cette etude, nous avons examine les champignons MA associes a une espece vivace longevive, l'arbre a pain (Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg), afin de voir comment les communautes de MA changent au cours de la duree de vie d'un hote unique longevif. A l'aide du sequen^age a haut debit sur 454, nous avons trouve des indices que les arbres plus ages comportaient davantage de taxons de MA que les arbres plus jeunes et qu'ils etaient associes a differentes communautes de MA fongiques, mais ces differences n'etaient pas apparentes tot dans le cycle de croissance. Les arbres plus ages etaient domines par Rhizophagus spp., alors que les arbres plus jeunes et les genets etaient domines par Glomus spp. Certains taxons n'etaient detectes que chez les arbres plus ages seulement (p.e. Funneliformis) ou les genets (p.e. Racocetra et Scutellospora), indiquant que certains taxons de MA fongiques pourraient etre utilises comme <> de l'age serial d'une communaute fongique. Ces resultats fournissent une information importante sur un systeme peu etudie et donnent un aper^u de la fa^on dont les communautes de MA changent en fonction d'echelles de temps plus longues. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles: champignon mycorhizien a arbuscule, succession, arbre a pain, microbiote de la racine, communaute., Introduction The succession of taxa in a community over time is a fundamental property of ecosystems (Clements 1916; Connell and Slatyer 1977). Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi represent one of the [...]

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It is difficult to understand why arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities change over time. The role of host identity confounds our understanding of successional changes in AM fungal communities because hosts exert strong selective pressure on their root-associated microbes. In this study we looked at the AM fungi associated with a long-lived perennial breadfruit ( Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg) to see how AM communities change over the life span of a single, long-lived host. Using 454 high-throughput sequencing, we found evidence that older trees had more AM fungal taxa than younger trees and were associated with different AM fungal communities, but these differences were not apparent early in the life cycle. Older trees were dominated by species of Rhizophagus, whereas younger trees and genets were dominated by species of Glomus. Some taxa were only detected in older trees (e.g., Funneliformis) or genets (e.g., Racocetra and Scutellospora), indicating that certain AM fungal taxa may serve as 'indicators' of the successional age of the fungal community. These results provide important information about a poorly studied system and give insight into how AM communities change over longer time scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]