Séminaire Ecobio - Laeitia Carrive (Ecobio) - OSERen, Salle De Conférences, RDC Bât.14B, Campus De Beaulieu De L'Université De Rennes

The study of phenotypical character evolution generally focuses on morphological traits. However, other traits evolve and take part in the evolutionary success of organisms. Angiosperms produce an enormous diversity of secondary metabolites, including toxins against herbivory. Many plants are also a source of medicine for humans. Within angiosperms, the order Ranunculales is an interesting clade for toxin evolution, as some produce compounds of high pharmaceutical interests (such as morphine), and some are the most toxic plants in the European floral (such as wolfsbanes). Secondary metabolite evolution in this group is quite unknown. Here we explore literature, mainly from phytochemistry, with a literature mining approach. Compounds described in the literature were automatically classified and treated as morphological characters with standard phylogenetic approaches. Results greatly vary between chemical classes, some of which seem to evolve at random, other being strong synapomorphies. Adaptive hypotheses are also sometimes tricky to address.