Secondary metabolites as a survival strategy in plants of high mountain habitats

Abstract

This review work focuses on how the secondary chemistry could help in the survival of plants in high mountain habitats under extreme environmental conditions. The elevated levels of stress in high areas of the tropic and subtropic change dramatically not only by following the annual cycles of winter and summer but they also change in a single day. Some species, however, are able to successfully grow at heights more than 3000 m in the tropical mountains due, in part, to highly specialized physiological processes that affect their physical and chemical responses. In this study, it describes some strategies of how the secondary metabolites could help the plants to stand the high levels of stress in the high mountain ecosystems.