Speaker
Description
Natural products (NPs) remain a major source of bioactive molecules, yet chemical exploration of biodiversity is highly uneven across plant lineages and ecosystems. Orchidaceae, one of the largest and most diverse plant families, is ecologically and economically prominent, but its global chemodiversity and associated research biases have not been systematically quantified. In this work, we integrate NP occurrence data from multiple sources with taxonomic harmonization, phylogenetic structure, chemical classification, and biogeographic distributions to generate a biodiversity-informed global map of chemical knowledge across Orchidaceae. A genus-level dataset of orchid NPs was compiled from NPASS and LOTUS records and harmonized against WCVP/POWO to identify distinct clades. Likewise, bioactivity profiles were retrieved from ChEMBL, structural classes were assigned via NPClassifier and functional signals were contextualized across GBIF/WWF ecoregions. Notably, Phalaenopsis emerges as a striking case, being simultaneously associated with a cold clade and an under-researched genus despite its prominence and economic relevance. Structural patterns further reveal strong lineage-specific biases, including the prominence of phenanthrene-related chemistry alongside other recurrent but less represented NP classes. Biogeographic analyses show that orchid richness peaks in Indonesia-Papua and the Neotropics, particularly in Tropical-Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests as well as Andean Montane and Cloud Forests, whereas chemical knowledge remains concentrated in a more restricted set of better-studied lineages and regions. In this context, Vanilla provides a complementary example: despite its prominence and broad distribution, currently documented chemistry captures only a narrow fraction of its wider biodiversity, and the contrast between Java and Cuba illustrates a potentially broader Indomalayan–Neotropical asymmetry in phytochemical reporting. Together, our results show that chemical discovery in Orchidaceae has not kept pace with biodiversity. We propose a biodiversity-informed framework for mapping chemodiversity and research gaps that can be generalized to other taxonomic groups, providing a quantitative basis for more efficient and evolution-aware NP discovery.
| Status Group | Postdoctoral Researcher |
|---|---|
| FOR TALKS: Poster Presentation Option | No, I prefer to present only as a talk. |