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A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems
Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions among species.
These species (clockwise from top left: white-chinned petrel, Fabaceae wind flowers, California newt, Barberton groundsel, Alderia sea slug, queen scallop) all occupy ecosystems where uncommon molecules have big impacts. The study took “herculean effort,” said the chemical ecologist Richard Zimmer from the University of California, Los Angeles, who coined the term “keystone molecule.” “Krug’s group did absolutely first-rate chemistry combined with behavioral ecology. With his graduate student Ryan Ferrer, now a chemical ecologist at Seattle Pacific University, Zimmer gathered more examples of multifunctional signals, and in 2007 they formally introduced the keystone molecules concept in a review paper in The Biological Bulletin.
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