ABSTRACT
Chemosystematics is an interdisciplinary eld of natural sciences investigating the distribution of natural products within all major groups of living organisms (archaea, bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals). Many primary metabolites are shared by most forms of life (with the notable exception of many archaea), and studies in chemosystematics aiming at the elucidation of relationships between taxa therefore usually focus on secondary metabolites [1]. Chemosystematics (adjective: chemosystematic) is the name for this discipline preferred here following the arguments put forward by Merxmüller in his critical discussion of the subject [2]. A recent ISI Web of Knowledge search (accessed on September 3, 2008) revealed that the terms chemotaxonomic/chemotaxonomy, with 3758 hits, were much more widely used than the term chemosystematic(s), with only 675 hits. This might partially be explained by the fact that the most eminent gure in the eld, Robert Hegnauer, also favored the term chemotaxonomy [3]. Interestingly, 4363 papers were found when combining the hits for either of the two search terms, and only 70 papers were found when both search terms chemosystematic(s) and chemotaxonomy(ic) were combined with AND.
