Laboratory of Evolutionary Ecology

We show how chemical diversity evolves in plants at different elevations

6/27/2023

Plants produce an astonishing diversity of various chemicals. So far, more than 200,000 different plant metabolites have been described. Individual specialized metabolites help plants cope with detrimental abiotic factors or defend themselves against natural enemies, such as herbivores and pathogens. While we understand the functions of some of these metabolites in plants, we still seek explanations for their seemingly excessive diversity.

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We kickstarted fieldwork within a new project on hybrid willows

6/8/2023

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In the past month, we kickstarted the first year of field work within a project that aims to explore adaptive hybridization in willows.

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In her new publication, Priscila shows how plants respond to different insect herbivores

6/2/2023

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Plants produce diverse chemical defences with contrasting effects on different insect herbivores. Deploying herbivore-specific responses can help plants increase their defensive efficacy. Here, we exposed 149 plants of Salix fragilis to 22 herbivore species from various orders and feeding guilds and explored the induced responses in volatiles and non-volatile leaf metabolites.
The volatile composition was best explained by chewing damage and insect order. Furthermore, we recorded significant differences in elicited volatiles among some species within the orders. Variation in non-volatile leaf metabolites was mainly explained by the presence of insects, as plants exposed to herbivores showed significantly different metabolites from controls.

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New Publications

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Martin Volf, (2026) Structural innovation and flexibility in plant chemical defenses, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 123 (15) e2606250123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2606250123

Mezzomo P.,  Leong J. V.,  Vodrážka P., Moos M., Özcan E., Bina D., Ré Jorge L., Volfová T.,  Pokorný V., Volf M., (2026) Species-specific scents, targeted enemies: Volatile cues mediate predator attraction in willows. Functional Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.70289

Sam K., Sivault E., Fernandez Garzon S., Finnie S., Kollross J., Houska Tahadlova M., Lenc J. Libra M., Ludwig A., Maraia H., Philip A. J., Re Jorge L., Xiao X & Volf M., (2026) Forest canopy insects are safer from predators in the tropics than at higher latitudes. Nature Communications, 2026, ttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69935-7

Chadwick S., Henderson D., Forrister D.L.,  Cayola L., Fuentes A., Alvestegui B.,  Muchhala N., J., Tello S., Volf M., Myers J. A.,  Sedio B.E. (2026) Chemical properties of foliar metabolomes represent a key axis of functional trait variation in forests of the tropical Andes. Proc Biol Sci 1 January 2026; 293 (2063): 20251721. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.1721

Putra R., Paulic M.,  Müller C. (2025) **Plant accession and insect infestation, rather than silicon supplementation, shape defence strategies of Arabidopsis halleri towards a leaf beetle, Plant Biology 435-8603, https://doi.org/10.1111/plb.70160

Segar S.T., Boutsi S., Souto-Vilarós D., Volf M., Dunn D. W., Cruaud A., Pereira R.A.S., Rasplus J-Y., Kjellberg F. (2025) The diversity of *Ficus***, Annals of Botany, mcaf280, https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcaf280

Marinček P., Leong J.V., Pittet L., Léveillé-Bourret È., Nyma T.,  Tomoshevich M., Banaev E., He L. , Hörandl E., Volf M., Wagner N.D., (2025)  **Spatio-temporal evolution of shrub willows (Salix subgenus Vetrix clade) on a global scale**, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 108480, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2025.108480

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