title: High-Throughput Non-destructive Phenotyping of Traits that Contribute to Salinity Tolerance inArabidopsis thaliana.
abstract: Reproducible and efficient high-throughput phenotyping approaches, combined with advances in genome sequencing, are facilitating the discovery of genes affecting plant performance. Salinity tolerance is a desirable trait that can be achieved through breeding, where most have aimed at selecting for plants that perform effective ion exclusion from the shoots. To determine overall plant performance under salt stress, it is helpful to investigate several plant traits collectively in one experimental setup. Hence, we developed a quantitative phenotyping protocol using a high-throughput phenotyping system, with RGB and chlorophyll fluorescence (ChlF) imaging, which captures the growth, morphology, color and photosynthetic performance ofArabidopsis thalianaplants in response to salt stress. We optimized our salt treatment by controlling the soil-water content prior to introducing salt stress. We investigated these traits over time in two accessions in soil at 150, 100, or 50 mM NaCl to find that the plants subjected to 100 mM NaCl showed the most prominent responses in the absence of symptoms of severe stress. In these plants, salt stress induced significant changes in rosette area and morphology, but less prominent changes in rosette coloring and photosystem II efficiency. Clustering of ChlF traits with plant growth of nine accessions maintained at 100 mM NaCl revealed that in the early stage of salt stress, salinity tolerance correlated with non-photochemical quenching processes and during the later stage, plant performance correlated with quantum yield. This integrative approach allows the simultaneous analysis of several phenotypic traits. In combination with various genetic resources, the phenotyping protocol described here is expected to increase our understanding of plant performance and stress responses, ultimately identifying genes that improve plant performance in salt stress conditions.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Mariam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Awlia
authors.affiliation: Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zurich Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Arianna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nigro
authors.affiliation: PSI (Photon Systems Instruments) Drásov, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jiří
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fajkus
authors.affiliation: Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Sandra M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Schmoeckel
authors.affiliation: Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Sónia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Negrão
authors.affiliation: Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zurich Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Santelia
authors.affiliation: PSI (Photon Systems Instruments) Drásov, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Trtílek
authors.affiliation: Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tester
authors.affiliation: Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Thuwal, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Magdalena M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Julkowska
authors.affiliation: PSI (Photon Systems Instruments) Drásov, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Klára
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Panzarová
keywords: Arabidopsis thaliana; color segmentation; high-throughput phenotyping; kinetic chlorophyll fluorescence imaging; salinity tolerance; salt stress; shoot-ion independent tolerance