Plants produce a great number of phytochemicals serving a variety of different functions. Recently, the chemodiversity of these compounds (i.e., the diversity of compounds produced by a plant) has been suggested to be an important aspect of the plant phenotype that may shape interactions between plants, their environment, and other organisms. However, we lack an agreement on how to quantify chemodiversity, which complicates conclusions about the functional importance of it. Here, we discuss how chemodiversity (deconstructed into components of richness, evenness and disparity) may relate to different ecologically relevant aspects of the phenotype. Then, we systematically review the literature on chemodiversity to examine methodological practices, explore patterns of variability in diversity across different levels of biological organization, and investigate the functional role of this diversity in interactions between plants and other organisms. Overall, the reviewed literature suggests that high chemodiversity is often beneficial for plants, although a heterogeneity of methodological approaches partly limits what general conclusions can be drawn. Importantly, to support future research on this topic, we provide a framework with a decision tree facilitating choices on which measures of chemodiversity are best used in different contexts and outline key questions and avenues for future research. A more thorough understanding of chemodiversity will provide insights into its evolution and functional role in ecological interactions between plants and their environment.

中文翻译：

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了解植物的化学多样性：定量、变异和生态功能


植物产生大量具有各种不同功能的植物化学物质。最近，这些化合物的化学多样性（即植物产生的化合物的多样性）被认为是植物表型的一个重要方面，它可能塑造植物、其环境和其他生物之间的相互作用。然而，我们对如何量化化学多样性缺乏共识，这使得关于其功能重要性的结论复杂化。在这里，我们讨论了化学多样性（解构为丰富度、均匀度和差异性成分）如何与表型的不同生态相关方面相关。然后，我们系统地回顾了有关化学多样性的文献，以检查方法论实践，探索生物组织不同层次的多样性变化模式，并研究这种多样性在植物与其他生物之间相互作用中的功能作用。总体而言，回顾的文献表明，高化学多样性通常对植物有益，尽管方法论方法的异质性在一定程度上限制了可以得出的一般结论。重要的是，为了支持关于该主题的未来研究，我们提供了一个带有决策树的框架，有助于选择在不同环境中最好使用哪些化学多样性措施，并概述了未来研究的关键问题和途径。对化学多样性的更透彻理解将有助于深入了解其进化及其在植物与其环境之间的生态相互作用中的功能作用。