DOI: 10.5061/dryad.tqjq2bw5k
title: Bioprospecting for improved floral fragrance in wild sunflowers

description: Cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is not typically considered to
 have a pleasant floral fragrance. In field production, seed yield is often
 limited by pollination services, particularly in the production of hybrid
 seed. Improved floral fragrance, as determined by volatile organic
 compounds, maybe a route to improving pollinator attraction for oilseed
 and confectionary production and could also add value to ornamental
 sunflowers. Wild relatives of H. annuus have a long history of being used
 to breed improved traits into cultivated varieties, yet it is unknown
 whether favorable scents are present in wild Helianthus species and thus
 an available resource for fragrance breeding. To assess the diversity of
 floral fragrance available in crop wild relatives, 30 diverse accessions
 of wild Helianthus as well as seven varieties of H. annuus spanning a
 domestication gradient were grown in greenhouse experiments and variation
 in floral volatiles was analyzed by solid phase microextraction-gas
 chromatography-mass spectrometry. While alpha-pinene made up a significant
 portion of the volatiles emitted for most taxa, there was substantial
 diversity present across the genus as well as within H. annuus. Most
 volatiles emitted were monoterpenoids with a significant share of
 sesquiterpenoids. The diversity identified here will inform further
 targeted study of which compounds affect pollinator attraction and health.
 Several wild accessions such as H. debilis subsp. tardiflorus and H.
 praecox subsp. praecox as well as open-pollinated domesticated accessions
 of H. annuus show promise for breeding for improved floral fragrance due
 to high volatile abundance and likely favorable compound compositions.
description: # Bioprospecting for Improved Floral Fragrance in Wild Sunflowers
 Two supplemental datasets
 are presented, containing compound abundance (mass normalized peak areas)
 and compound proportional composition (percentages of total mass
 normalized peak area), along with supplemental tables and figures. ##
 Description of the data and file structure **Dataset S1 (CSV)**: Mean mass
 normalized peak areas from GCMS data. The first column lists accession
 scientific name and ploidy level/source if applicable. The second column
 provides source information also presented in Table S1, referring to
 either commercial sources, local wild collection, or the USDA National
 Plant Germplasm System (Plant Introduction number). The subsequent columns
 list compounds in alphabetical order with their respective mean mass
 normalized peak areas. Means were calculated excluding zeroes to account
 for any error in detection. **Dataset S2 (CSV)**: Proportional composition
 of fragrance profiles, based on average percent makeup of total mass
 normalized peak areas from GCMS data. The first column lists accession
 scientific name and ploidy level/source if applicable. The second column
 provides source information also presented in Table S1, referring to
 either commercial sources, local wild collection, or the USDA National
 Plant Germplasm System (Plant Introduction number). The subsequent columns
 list compounds in alphabetical order with their respective percentage of
 each compound. **Table S1.** All species and accessions used in this study
 and the number of GC-MS replicates analyzed. Accessions source information
 either refers to USDA National Plant Germplasm System identifier (Plant
 Introduction number), commercial source information, or *H. annuus*
 accessions are listed as abbreviated versions of their name as listed in
 the methods. **Table S2.** Accessions of wild Helianthus sorted by total
 number of compounds detected in floral volatiles, with counts of
 monoterpenoids, sesquiterpenoids, and other compounds identified in each.
 Samples from the parallel experiment across an *H. annuus* domestication
 gradient are listed at the end of the table. **Table S3.** Accession means
 for mass-normalized peak area for volatile organic compounds listed by
 chemical subclass. Accessions are sorted from lowest total abundance to
 highest total abundance. *H. annuus* accessions are listed at the end of
 the table and are sorted from lowest total abundance to highest total
 abundance. **Figure S1.** Heat map demonstrating Spearman’s rho
 correlation coefficients among volatile compound abundances for all 237
 compounds, calculated using accession means of mass-normalized peak areas,
 as clustered and visualized using the *pheatmap* package. ##
 Sharing/Access information The data archived here is also available from
 the publisher's website.