Natural products diversity

Marine Natural Products - Diversity and Biosynthesis contains four chapters, which review some of the most lively research topics in the field, all written by active contributors. 

Keywords Macrocycles Natural products Diversity-oriented synthesis ... 

This book is designed to provide an all encompassing vision of the diversity of natural products in the perspective of biodiversity. Both living organisms and fossil remains are taken into account, without any bias for either the sea, land, or extreme environments. Understandably, however, this is not intended to be a comprehensive portrait of natural product diversity, which would be beyond my resources and would demand a multi-volume treatment. 

Next, threatening of natural product diversity is examined, eMter by human activity or mass mortality during the geological eras. Molecular skeletons are shown, for the same reasons above about the natural product diversity from extant organisms. Management and conservation of natural products are also briefly discussed. 

Part II. The relationship between biodiversity and natural product diversity... 

Chapter 5. Natural product diversity at which rank ... 

Under these competitive conditions for space and resources, tropical plants have evolved a variety of signaling secondary metabolites. Some serve to attract pollinator insects, other ones as a defense against grazers and parasites. This makes the tropical land a center of high natural product diversity. 

Part III. Natural product diversity at ecosystem level 6.1.1 American tropical and subtropical land... 

In coral reefe, high natural product diversity stems from the many sponges, cnidarians, corals, and... 

That the Indo-Pacific (Fig. 7.1.II) is an area of high natural product diversity was first revealed by the studies carried out in the 1970 s at the Roche Research Institute on the Great Barrier Reef (Baker 1980). Studies worldwide have since confirmed this richness, unsurpassed by any other area, either in the sea or on land. The variety of small peptides from the Indo-Pacific is impressive, characterized, particularly with the ascidians, by the condensation of the cysteine NH2 and SH groups with the COOH group of an adjacent amino acid. Thiazole and thiazoline rings are formed, which alternate with the normal peptide bonds formed by the other amino acids (Chart 7.2.P1-3). Correspondingly, threonine forms methyloxazoline moieties (Chart 7.2. A, 7.2.P1,7.2.P2). These condensations inqiose a drastic conformational bias to peptides (Abbenante 1996). 

Composed of beautiful coral reefe, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico have provided unique marine natural products. However, the active area of the Caribbean is small compared to the Indo-Pacific the Brazilian coast is made inhospitable to coral reefe because of the fresh waters brought in by the Amazon river. Therefore, the natural product diversity of the Caribbean is second to the Indo-Pacific. 

One may wonder whether the many metabolites known from the North Pacific connote a particular richness of this area or it was the commitment of Japanese chemists that left nothing hidden. On the other hand, this is a question that always arises when the natural product diversity is evaluated at local-geographic level. 

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