CEF/CEABN Seminars – Mass Spectrometry-Based Forest Tree Metabolomics: metabolite responses to a changing climate

In the next CEF/CEABN Seminar we will learn how metabolomics can help understand tree responses to climate change.

“Mass Spectrometry-Based Forest Tree Metabolomics: metabolite responses to a changing climate” is the title of the CEF/CEABN Seminar that will take place on October 9, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., in the Salão Nobre of the Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA).

Carla António, Coordinator of the Plant Metabolomics Laboratory and Associate Researcher at the Forest Research Centre (CEF), research unit of the Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA) of the University of Lisbon (ULisboa), will discuss how metabolomics can help to understand tree responses to climate change – an essential topic for protecting our forests and biodiversity.

Forests are of vital importance not only because they are a source of a wide range of economical valuable products but also because forest ecosystems provide crucial services to humankind, including preservation of biodiversity, soil and water quality, carbon cycling, climate regulation, and climate change mitigation. Metabolomics methods in forest tree research are particularly limited given the long-life cycle, large genome size and lack of genomic tools of forest tree species. However, since the major genomics breakthroughs in forest tree research (e.g., availability of the first ever tree genome sequence, Populus trichocarpa in 2006), metabolomics studies in forest tree species have generated increased interest.

In this area, metabolomics represents a unique opportunity to explore the metabolic and developmental pathways of forest trees in response to critical damages associated with global climate change (abiotic/biotic). Abiotic stress events can devastate forests while biotic stress events, associated with forest insect pests and pathogen outbreaks, can seriously affect tree immune responses. Altogether, these environmental-stress factors promote tree disease spread and, eventually, lead to tree mortality.

Digging deeper into the understanding of the defense mechanisms involved in the resilience of forest trees to climate change is, therefore, crucial to developing strategies that best secure the protection of our forests, their biodiversity, and ultimately, ourselves.