title: Phenomics for photosynthesis, growth and reflectance in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals circadian and long-term fluctuations in heritability.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent advances in genome sequencing technologies have shifted the research bottleneck in plant sciences from genotyping to phenotyping. This shift has driven the development of phenomics, high-throughput non-invasive phenotyping technologies.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We describe an automated high-throughput phenotyping platform, the Phenovator, capable of screening 1440 Arabidopsis plants multiple times per day for photosynthesis, growth and spectral reflectance at eight wavelengths. Using this unprecedented phenotyping capacity, we have been able to detect significant genetic differences between Arabidopsis accessions for all traits measured, across both temporal and environmental scales. The high frequency of measurement allowed us to observe that heritability was not only trait specific, but for some traits was also time specific.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Such continuous real-time non-destructive phenotyping will allow detailed genetic and physiological investigations of the kinetics of plant homeostasis and development. The success and ultimate outcome of a breeding program will depend greatly on the genetic variance which is sampled. Our observation of temporal fluctuations in trait heritability shows that the moment of measurement can have lasting consequences. Ultimately such phenomic level technologies will provide more dynamic insights into plant physiology, and the necessary data for the omics revolution to reach its full potential.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; Horticulture and Production Physiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Pádraic J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Flood
authors.affiliation: Biometris, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Willem
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kruijer
authors.affiliation: Biometris, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sabine K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Schnabel
authors.affiliation: Greenhouse Horticulture, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; PhenoVation BV, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: van der Schoor
authors.affiliation: Greenhouse Horticulture, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; PhenoVation BV, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Henk
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jalink
authors.affiliation: Greenhouse Horticulture, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands ; Adviesbureau JFH Snel, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan F H
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Snel
authors.affiliation: Horticulture and Production Physiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jeremy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Harbinson
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mark G M
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5257-0740
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Aarts
keywords: Arabidopsis thaliana; Chlorophyll fluorescence; Heritability; High throughput screening; Natural variation; Phenomics; Photosynthesis