Untargeted metabolic profiling reveals geography as the strongest predictor of metabolic phenotypes of a cosmopolitan weed

Plants produce a multitude of metabolites that contribute to their fitness and survival, and play a role in local adaptation to environmental conditions. The effects of environmental variation is particularly well studied within the genus Plantago, however, previous studies have largely focused on targeting specific metabolites. Studies exploring metabolome wide changes are lacking, and the effects of natural environmental variation and herbivory on the metabolomes of plants growing in situ remain unknown. An untargeted metabolomic approach using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, coupled with variation partitioning, general linear mixed modelling, and network analysis was used to detect differences in metabolic phenotypes of Plantago major in fifteen natural populations across Denmark. Geographic region, distance, habitat type, phenological stage, soil parameters, light levels, and leaf area, were investigated for their relative contributions to explaining ...