Heterogeneous distribution of metabolites across plant species

TL;DR

This paper explores the distribution patterns of flavonoids across plant species, revealing conserved power-law distributions and proposing a simple evolutionary model to explain the heterogeneity in metabolite diversity.

Contribution

It uncovers conserved power-law distributions in flavonoid sharing and introduces a minimal model explaining their origin through evolutionary mechanisms.

Findings

Power-law distribution of flavonoids per species

Power-law distribution of shared species per flavonoid

Simple multiplicative process explains heterogeneity

Abstract

We investigate the distribution of flavonoids, a major category of plant secondary metabolites, across species. Flavonoids are known to show high species specificity, and were once considered as chemical markers for understanding adaptive evolution and characterization of living organisms. We investigate the distribution among species using bipartite networks, and find that two heterogeneous distributions are conserved among several families: the power-law distributions of the number of flavonoids in a species and the number of shared species of a particular flavonoid. In order to explain the possible origin of the heterogeneity, we propose a simple model with, essentially, a single parameter. As a result, we show that two respective power-law statistics emerge from simple evolutionary mechanisms based on a multiplicative process. These findings provide insights into the evolution of metabolite diversity and characterization of living organisms that defy genome sequence analysis for different reasons.