Conserving and protecting natural environments is highly valuable anyway. However, it promotes access to new sources of useful materials, too. An example from the Brazilian Cerrado shows that bioactive compounds with potential use as herbicides and insecticides can be derived from endemic species like Vellozia gigantea. Researchers from Brazil and USA identified compounds with phytotoxic potential that might be candidates for nature-derived herbicides. A LemnaTec Scanalyzer was used to measure toxicity of the substances towards Lemna paucicostata.

Ferreira, Mariana C.; Cantrell, Charles L.; Duke, Stephen O.; Ali, Abbas; Rosa, Luiz H. (2017): New Pesticidal Diterpenoids from Vellozia gigantea (Velloziaceae), an Endemic Neotropical Plant Living in the Endangered Brazilian Biome Rupestrian Grasslands. In: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) 22 (1). DOI: 10.3390/molecules22010175.