The relationship between leaf area growth and biomass accumulation in Arabidopsis thaliana.
Leaf area growth determines the light interception capacity of a crop and is often used as a surrogate for plant growth in high-throughput phenotyping systems. The relationship between leaf area growth and growth in terms of mass will depend on how carbon is partitioned among new leaf area, leaf mass, root mass, reproduction, and respiration. A model of leaf area growth in terms of photosynthetic rate and carbon partitioning to different plant organs was developed and tested with Arabidopsis thaliana L. Heynh. ecotype Columbia (Col-0) and a mutant line, gigantea-2 (gi-2), which develops very large rosettes. Data obtained from growth analysis and gas exchange measurements was used to train a genetic programming algorithm to parameterize and test the above model. The relationship between leaf area and plant biomass was found to be non-linear and variable depending on carbon partitioning. The model output was sensitive to the rate of photosynthesis but more sensitive to the amount of carbon partitioned to growing thicker leaves. The large rosette size of gi-2 relative to that of Col-0 resulted from relatively small differences in partitioning to new leaf area vs. leaf thickness.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA.
Sarathi M
SM
Weraduwage
Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA ; Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA.
Jin
J
Chen
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA.
Fransisca C
FC
Anozie
Centre for Crop Systems Analysis, Wageningen University Wageningen, Netherlands.
Alejandro
A
Morales
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA.
Sean E
SE
Weise
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University East Lansing, MI, USA.
Thomas D
TD
Sharkey
carbon partitioning; growth; leaf area; leaf thickening; photosynthesis; specific leaf area