Chemical Evolution of Monoterpenes in Mentha

Life is based on signals. In plants many signals arise from secondary metabolism, that is extremely rich – more than one million of specific compounds are only formed by plants. The idea to be pursued in the project is to understand how and why the nature has played “metabolic LEGO” in Mentha to create such a chemical diversity even within the genus. If chemical diversity of closely related species is established during evolution, the specificity calls for a specific biological function. Specificity in biology mostly comes from signaling. Thus, we want to find out, whether the chemical diversity of Mentha monoterpenes is linked with specific signaling. The results from this work are not only interesting for science, but they are also interesting for application, for instance to develop new bioherbicides based on allelopathy.