Albert Gargallo Garriga
@czechglobe.cz/en/contacts/1077
Czechglobe
Senior
EDUCATION
Chemistry
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Metabolomics
Scopus Publications
Scholar Citations
Scholar h-index
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Jordi Sardans, Joan Llusià, Guille Peguero, Marta Ayala-Roque, Elodie A. Courtois, Clément Stahl, Otmar Urban, Karel Klem, Pau Nolis,et al.
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Abstract Background The availability of soil phosphorus (P) often limits the productivities of wet tropical lowland forests. Little is known, however, about the metabolomic profile of different chemical P compounds with potentially different uses and about the cycling of P and their variability across space under different tree species in highly diverse tropical rainforests. Results We hypothesised that the different strategies of the competing tree species to retranslocate, mineralise, mobilise, and take up P from the soil would promote distinct soil 31P profiles. We tested this hypothesis by performing a metabolomic analysis of the soils in two rainforests in French Guiana using 31P nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). We analysed 31P NMR chemical shifts in soil solutions of model P compounds, including inorganic phosphates, orthophosphate mono- and diesters, phosphonates, and organic polyphosphates. The identity of the tree species (growing above the soil samples) explained > 53% of the total variance of the 31P NMR metabolomic profiles of the soils, suggesting species-specific ecological niches and/or species-specific interactions with the soil microbiome and soil trophic web structure and functionality determining the use and production of P compounds. Differences at regional and topographic levels also explained some part of the the total variance of the 31P NMR profiles, although less than the influence of the tree species. Multivariate analyses of soil 31P NMR metabolomics data indicated higher soil concentrations of P biomolecules involved in the active use of P (nucleic acids and molecules involved with energy and anabolism) in soils with lower concentrations of total soil P and higher concentrations of P-storing biomolecules in soils with higher concentrations of total P. Conclusions The results strongly suggest “niches” of soil P profiles associated with physical gradients, mostly topographic position, and with the specific distribution of species along this gradient, which is associated with species-specific strategies of soil P mineralisation, mobilisation, use, and uptake.
Miquel Ferrín, Josep Peñuelas, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Amaia Iribar, Ivan A. Janssens, Sara Marañón-Jiménez, Jérôme Murienne, Andreas Richter, Bjarni D. Sigurdsson, and Guille Peguero
Elsevier BV
Jordi Sardans, Joan Llusià, Romà Ogaya, Helen Vallicrosa, Iolanda Filella, Albert Gargallo‐Garriga, Guille Peguero, Leandro Van Langenhove, Lore T. Verryckt, Clément Stahl,et al.
Wiley
AbstractBiogeochemical niche (BN) hypothesis aims to relate species/genotype elemental composition with its niche based on the fact that different elements are involved differentially in distinct plant functions. We here test the BN hypothesis through the analysis of the 10 foliar elemental concentrations and 20 functional‐morphological of 60 tree species in a French Guiana tropical forest. We observed strong legacy (phylogenic + species) signals in the species‐specific foliar elemental composition (elementome) and, for the first time, provide empirical evidence for a relationship between species‐specific foliar elementome and functional traits. Our study thus supports the BN hypothesis and confirms the general niche segregation process through which the species‐specific use of bio‐elements drives the high levels of α‐diversity in this tropical forest. We show that the simple analysis of foliar elementomes may be used to test for BNs of co‐occurring species in highly diverse ecosystems, such as tropical rainforests. Although cause and effect mechanisms of leaf functional and morphological traits in species‐specific use of bio‐elements require confirmation, we posit the hypothesis that divergences in functional‐morphological niches and species‐specific biogeochemical use are likely to have co‐evolved.
Lin Zi, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Michal Oravec, Hamada AbdElgawad, Ivan Nijs, Hans J. De Boeck, Simon Reynaert, Chase Donnelly, Lingjuan Li, Gerrit T.S. Beemster,et al.
Elsevier BV
Miquel Ferrín, Josep Peñuelas, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Amaia Iribar, Ivan A. Janssens, Sara Marañón-Jiménez, Jérôme Murienne, Andreas Richter, Bjarni D. Sigurdsson, and Guille Peguero
Elsevier BV
Tom W. N. Walker, Franziska Schrodt, Pierre-Marie Allard, Emmanuel Defossez, Vincent E. J. Jassey, Meredith C. Schuman, Jake M. Alexander, Oliver Baines, Virginie Baldy, Richard D. Bardgett,et al.
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
The metabolome is the biochemical basis of plant form and function, but we know little about its macroecological variation across the plant kingdom. Here, we used the plant functional trait concept to interpret leaf metabolome variation among 457 tropical and 339 temperate plant species. Distilling metabolite chemistry into five metabolic functional traits reveals that plants vary on two major axes of leaf metabolic specialization—a leaf chemical defense spectrum and an expression of leaf longevity. Axes are similar for tropical and temperate species, with many trait combinations being viable. However, metabolic traits vary orthogonally to life-history strategies described by widely used functional traits. The metabolome thus expands the functional trait concept by providing additional axes of metabolic specialization for examining plant form and function.
Guille Peguero, Miquel Ferrín, Jordi Sardans, Erik Verbruggen, Irene Ramírez‐Rojas, Leandro Van Langenhove, Lore T. Verryckt, Jerome Murienne, Amaia Iribar, Lucie Zinger,et al.
Wiley
Understanding the mechanisms that drive the change of biotic assemblages over space and time is the main quest of community ecology. Assessing the relative importance of dispersal and environmental species selection in a range of organismic sizes and motilities has been a fruitful strategy. A consensus for whether spatial and environmental distances operate similarly across spatial scales and taxa, however, has yet to emerge. We used censuses of four major groups of organisms (soil bacteria and fungi, ground insects and trees) at two observational scales (1-m2 sampling point vs 2500-m2 plots) in a topographically standardized sampling design replicated in two tropical rainforests with contrasting relationships between spatial distance and nutrient availability. We modeled the decay of assemblage similarity for each taxon set and site to assess the relative contributions of spatial distance and nutrient availability distance and evaluated the potentially structuring effect of tree composition over all other taxa. Similarity of nutrient content in the litter and topsoil had a stronger and more consistent selective effect than did dispersal limitation, particularly for bacteria, fungi and trees at the plot level. Ground insects, the only group assessed with the capacity of active dispersal, had the highest species turnover and the flattest non-significant distance-decay relationship, suggesting that neither dispersal limitation nor nutrient availability were fundamental drivers of their community assembly at this scale of analysis. Only the fungal communities at one of our study sites were clearly coordinated with tree composition. Spatial distance at the smallest scale was more important than nutrient selection for the bacteria, fungi and insects. The lower initial similarity and the moderate variation in composition identified by these distance-decay models, however, suggested that the effects of stochastic sampling were important at this smaller spatial scale. Our results highlight the importance of nutrients as one of the main environmental drivers of rainforest communities irrespective of organismic or propagule size and how the overriding effect of the analytical scale influences the interpretation, leading to the perception of a greater importance of dispersal limitation and ecological drift over selection associated with environmental niches at decreasing observational scales.
Qiang Jin, Chun Wang, Jordi Sardans, Tony Vancov, Yunying Fang, Liangquan Wu, Xiaoting Huang, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Josep Peñuelas, and Weiqi Wang
Elsevier BV
Lore T. Verryckt, Sara Vicca, Leandro Van Langenhove, Clément Stahl, Dolores Asensio, Ifigenia Urbina, Romà Ogaya, Joan Llusià, Oriol Grau, Guille Peguero,et al.
Copernicus GmbH
Abstract. Terrestrial biosphere models typically use the biochemical model of Farquhar, von Caemmerer, and Berry (1980) to simulate photosynthesis, which requires accurate values of photosynthetic capacity of different biomes. However, data on tropical forests are sparse and highly variable due to the high species diversity, and it is still highly uncertain how these tropical forests respond to nutrient limitation in terms of C uptake. Tropical forests often grow on soils low in phosphorus (P) and are, in general, assumed to be P rather than nitrogen (N) limited. However, the relevance of P as a control of photosynthetic capacity is still debated. Here, we provide a comprehensive dataset of vertical profiles of photosynthetic capacity and important leaf traits, including leaf N and P concentrations, from two 3-year, large-scale nutrient addition experiments conducted in two tropical rainforests in French Guiana. These data present a unique source of information to further improve model representations of the roles of N, P, and other leaf nutrients in photosynthesis in tropical forests. To further facilitate the use of our data in syntheses and model studies, we provide an elaborate list of ancillary data, including important soil properties and nutrients, along with the leaf data. As environmental drivers are key to improve our understanding of carbon (C) and nutrient cycle interactions, this comprehensive dataset will aid to further enhance our understanding of how nutrient availability interacts with C uptake in tropical forests. The data are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5638236 (Verryckt, 2021).
Catherine Preece, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Jordi Sardans, Michal Oravec, Karel Klem, Otmar Urban, and Josep Peñuelas
Elsevier
Tom W. N. Walker, Jake M. Alexander, Pierre‐Marie Allard, Oliver Baines, Virginie Baldy, Richard D. Bardgett, Pol Capdevila, Phyllis D. Coley, Bruno David, Emmanuel Defossez,et al.
Wiley
A major aim of ecology is to upscale attributes of individuals to understand processes at population, community and ecosystem scales. Such attributes are typically described using functional traits, that is, standardised characteristics that impact fitness via effects on survival, growth and/or reproduction. However, commonly used functional traits (e.g. wood density, SLA) are becoming increasingly criticised for not being truly mechanistic and for being questionable predictors of ecological processes. This Special Feature reviews and studies how the metabolome (i.e. the thousands of unique metabolites that underpin physiology) can enhance trait‐based ecology and our understanding of plant and ecosystem functioning. In this Editorial, we explore how the metabolome relates to plant functional traits, with reference to life‐history trade‐offs governing fitness between generations and plasticity shaping fitness within generations. We also identify solutions to challenges of acquiring, interpreting and contextualising metabolome data, and propose a roadmap for integrating the metabolome into ecology. We next summarise the seven studies composing the Special Feature, which use the metabolome to examine mechanisms behind plant community assembly, plant‐organismal interactions and effects of plants and soil micro‐organisms on ecosystem processes. Synthesis. We demonstrate the potential of the metabolome to improve mechanistic and predictive power in ecology by providing a high‐resolution coupling between physiology and fitness. However, applying metabolomics to ecological questions is currently limited by a lack of conceptual, technical and data frameworks, which needs to be overcome to realise the full potential of the metabolome for ecology.
Joan Llusià, Dolores Asensio, Jordi Sardans, Iolanda Filella, Guille Peguero, Oriol Grau, Romà Ogaya, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Lore T. Verryckt, Leandro Van Langenhove,et al.
Elsevier BV
M. Sebastiana, A. Gargallo-Garriga, J. Sardans, M. Pérez-Trujillo, F. Monteiro, A. Figueiredo, M. Maia, R. Nascimento, M. Sousa Silva, A. N. Ferreira,et al.
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
AbstractMycorrhizas are known to have a positive impact on plant growth and ability to resist major biotic and abiotic stresses. However, the metabolic alterations underlying mycorrhizal symbiosis are still understudied. By using metabolomics and transcriptomics approaches, cork oak roots colonized by the ectomycorrhizal fungus Pisolithus tinctorius were compared with non-colonized roots. Results show that compounds putatively corresponding to carbohydrates, organic acids, tannins, long-chain fatty acids and monoacylglycerols, were depleted in ectomycorrhizal cork oak colonized roots. Conversely, non-proteogenic amino acids, such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and several putative defense-related compounds, including oxylipin-family compounds, terpenoids and B6 vitamers were induced in mycorrhizal roots. Transcriptomic analysis suggests the involvement of GABA in ectomycorrhizal symbiosis through increased synthesis and inhibition of degradation in mycorrhizal roots. Results from this global metabolomics analysis suggest decreases in root metabolites which are common components of exudates, and in compounds related to root external protective layers which could facilitate plant-fungal contact and enhance symbiosis. Root metabolic pathways involved in defense against stress were induced in ectomycorrhizal roots that could be involved in a plant mechanism to avoid uncontrolled growth of the fungal symbiont in the root apoplast. Several of the identified symbiosis-specific metabolites, such as GABA, may help to understand how ectomycorrhizal fungi such as P. tinctorius benefit their host plants.
Alba Lázaro‐González, Albert Gargallo‐Garriga, José Antonio Hódar, Jordi Sardans, Michal Oravec, Otmar Urban, Josep Peñuelas, and Regino Zamora
Wiley
Mistletoe-host systems exemplify an intimate and chronic relationship where mistletoes represent protracted stress for hosts, causing long-lasting impact. Although host changes in morphological and reproductive traits due to parasitism are well known, shifts in their physiological system, altering metabolite concentrations, are less known due to the difficulty of quantification. Here we use ecometabolomic techniques in plant-plant interaction, comparing the complete metabolome of the leaves from mistletoe (Viscum album) and needles from their host (Pinus nigra), both parasitized and unparasitized, to elucidate host responses to plant parasitism. Our results show that mistletoe acquires metabolites basically from the primary metabolism of its host, and synthesises its own defence compounds. In response to mistletoe parasitism, pines modify a quarter of their metabolome over the year, making the pine canopy metabolome more homogeneous by reducing the seasonal shifts in top-down stratification. Overall, host pines increase antioxidant metabolites, suggesting oxidative stress, and also increase part of the metabolites required by mistletoe, which act as a permanent sink of host resources. In conclusion, by exerting biotic stress and thereby causing permanent systemic change, mistletoe parasitism generates a new host-plant metabolic identity available in forest canopy, which could have notable ecological consequences in the forest ecosystem. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Jordi Sardans, Abdulwahed Fahad Alrefaei, Karel Klem, Lucia Fuchslueger, Irene Ramírez-Rojas, Julian Donald, Celine Leroy, Leandro Van Langenhove, Erik Verbruggen,et al.
MDPI AG
Tropical forests are biodiversity hotspots, but it is not well understood how this diversity is structured and maintained. One hypothesis rests on the generation of a range of metabolic niches, with varied composition, supporting a high species diversity. Characterizing soil metabolomes can reveal fine-scale differences in composition and potentially help explain variation across these habitats. In particular, little is known about canopy soils, which are unique habitats that are likely to be sources of additional biodiversity and biogeochemical cycling in tropical forests. We studied the effects of diverse tree species and epiphytes on soil metabolomic profiles of forest floor and canopy suspended soils in a French Guianese rainforest. We found that the metabolomic profiles of canopy suspended soils were distinct from those of forest floor soils, differing between epiphyte-associated and non-epiphyte suspended soils, and the metabolomic profiles of suspended soils varied with host tree species, regardless of association with epiphyte. Thus, tree species is a key driver of rainforest suspended soil metabolomics. We found greater abundance of metabolites in suspended soils, particularly in groups associated with plants, such as phenolic compounds, and with metabolic pathways related to amino acids, nucleotides, and energy metabolism, due to the greater relative proportion of tree and epiphyte organic material derived from litter and root exudates, indicating a strong legacy of parent biological material. Our study provides evidence for the role of tree and epiphyte species in canopy soil metabolomic composition and in maintaining the high levels of soil metabolome diversity in this tropical rainforest. It is likely that a wide array of canopy microsite-level environmental conditions, which reflect interactions between trees and epiphytes, increase the microscale diversity in suspended soil metabolomes.
Jordi Sardans, Albert Gargallo‐Garriga, Otmar Urban, Karel Klem, Petr Holub, Ivan A. Janssens, Tom W. N. Walker, Argus Pesqueda, and Josep Peñuelas
Wiley
Leandro Van Langenhove, Thomas Depaepe, Lore T. Verryckt, Helena Vallicrosa, Lucia Fuchslueger, Laynara F. Lugli, Laëtitia Bréchet, Roma Ogaya, Joan Llusia, Ifigenia Urbina,et al.
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
In tropical forests, free‐living Biological nitrogen (N) fixation (BNF) in soil and litter tends to decrease when substrate N concentrations increase, whereas increasing phosphorus (P) and molybdenum (Mo) soil and litter concentrations have been shown to stimulate free‐living BNF rates. Yet, very few studies explored the effects of adding N, P, and Mo together in a single large‐scale fertilization experiment, which would teach us which of these elements constrain or limit BNF activities. At two distinct forest sites in French Guiana, we performed a 3‐year in situ nutrient addition study to explore the effects of N, P, and Mo additions on leaf litter and soil BNF. Additionally, we conducted a short‐term laboratory study with the same nutrient addition treatments (+N, +N+P, +P, +Mo, and +P+Mo). We found that N additions alone suppressed litter free‐living BNF in the field, but not in the short‐term laboratory study, while litter free‐living BNF remained unchanged in response to N+P additions. Additionally, we found that P and P+Mo additions stimulated BNF in leaf litter, both in the field and in the lab, while Mo alone yielded no changes. Soil BNF increased with P and P+Mo additions in only one of the field sites, while in the other site soil BNF increased with Mo and P+Mo additions. We concluded that increased substrate N concentrations suppress BNF. Moreover, both P and Mo have the potential to limit free‐living BNF in these tropical forests, but the balance between P versus Mo limitation is determined by site‐specific characteristics of nutrient supply and demand.
Ifigenia Urbina, Oriol Grau, Jordi Sardans, Olga Margalef, Guillermo Peguero, Dolores Asensio, Joan LLusià, Romà Ogaya, Albert Gargallo‐Garriga, Leandro Van Langenhove,et al.
Wiley
Abstract Resorption is the active withdrawal of nutrients before leaf abscission. This mechanism represents an important strategy to maintain efficient nutrient cycling; however, resorption is poorly characterized in old‐growth tropical forests growing in nutrient‐poor soils. We investigated nutrient resorption from leaves in 39 tree species in two tropical forests on the Guiana Shield, French Guiana, to investigate whether resorption efficiencies varied with soil nutrient, seasonality, and species traits. The stocks of P in leaves, litter, and soil were low at both sites, indicating potential P limitation of the forests. Accordingly, mean resorption efficiencies were higher for P (35.9%) and potassium (K; 44.6%) than for nitrogen (N; 10.3%). K resorption was higher in the wet (70.2%) than in the dry (41.7%) season. P resorption increased slightly with decreasing total soil P; and N and P resorptions were positively related to their foliar concentrations. We conclude that nutrient resorption is a key plant nutrition strategy in these old‐growth tropical forests, that trees with high foliar nutrient concentration reabsorb more nutrient, and that nutrients resorption in leaves, except P, are quite decoupled from nutrients in the soil. Seasonality and biochemical limitation played a role in the resorption of nutrients in leaves, but species‐specific requirements obscured general tendencies at stand and ecosystem level.
Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Jordi Sardans, Marta Ayala-Roque, Bjarni D. Sigurdsson, Niki I.W. Leblans, Michal Oravec, Karel Klem, Ivan A. Janssens, Otmar Urban, and Josep Peñuelas
Elsevier BV
Guille Peguero, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Joan Maspons, Karel Klem, Otmar Urban, Jordi Sardans, and Josep Peñuelas
MDPI AG
Tropical plants are expected to have a higher variety of defensive traits, such as a more diverse array of secondary metabolic compounds in response to greater pressures of antagonistic interactions, than their temperate counterparts. We test this hypothesis using advanced metabolomics linked to a novel stoichiometric compound classification to analyze the complete foliar metabolomes of four tropical and four temperate tree species, which were selected so that each subset contained the same amount of phylogenetic diversity and evenness. We then built Bayesian phylogenetic multilevel models to test for tropical–temperate differences in metabolite diversity for the entire metabolome and for four major families of secondary compounds. We found strong evidence supporting that the leaves of tropical tree species have a higher phenolic diversity. The functionally closer group of polyphenolics also showed moderate evidence of higher diversity in tropical species, but there were no differences either for the entire metabolome or for the other major families of compounds analyzed. This supports the interpretation that this tropical–temperate contrast must be related to the functional role of phenolics and polyphenolics.
Jordi Sardans, Helena Vallicrosa, Paolo Zuccarini, Gerard Farré-Armengol, Marcos Fernández-Martínez, Guille Peguero, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Philippe Ciais, Ivan A. Janssens, Michael Obersteiner,et al.
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Leandro Van Langenhove, Thomas Depaepe, Lore T. Verryckt, Lucia Fuchslueger, Julian Donald, Celine Leroy, Sruthi M. Krishna Moorthy, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, M.D. Farnon Ellwood, Hans Verbeeck,et al.
Elsevier BV
Xiaoxuan Chen, Martin Wiesmeier, Jordi Sardans, Lukas Van Zwieten, Yunying Fang, Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Youyang Chen, Shuyun Chen, Congsheng Zeng, Josep Peñuelas,et al.
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
A.M. Yáñez-Serrano, I. Filella, J. LLusià, A. Gargallo-Garriga, V. Granda, E. Bourtsoukidis, J. Williams, R. Seco, L. Cappellin, C. Werner,et al.
Elsevier BV
Albert Gargallo-Garriga, Jordi Sardans, Victor Granda, Joan Llusià, Guille Peguero, Dolores Asensio, Romà Ogaya, Ifigenia Urbina, Leandro Van Langenhove, Lore T. Verryckt,et al.
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
AbstractTropical rainforests harbor a particularly high plant diversity. We hypothesize that potential causes underlying this high diversity should be linked to distinct overall functionality (defense and growth allocation, anti-stress mechanisms, reproduction) among the different sympatric taxa. In this study we tested the hypothesis of the existence of a metabolomic niche related to a species-specific differential use and allocation of metabolites. We tested this hypothesis by comparing leaf metabolomic profiles of 54 species in two rainforests of French Guiana. Species identity explained most of the variation in the metabolome, with a species-specific metabolomic profile across dry and wet seasons. In addition to this “homeostatic” species-specific metabolomic profile significantly linked to phylogenetic distances, also part of the variance (flexibility) of the metabolomic profile was explained by season within a single species. Our results support the hypothesis of the high diversity in tropical forest being related to a species-specific metabolomic niche and highlight ecometabolomics as a tool to identify this species functional diversity related and consistent with the ecological niche theory.