Non-destructive quantification of shoot apical meristem homeostasis for prediction of plant architecture and biomass using robot-based 3D imaging and photosynthesis measurements

Abstract

Shoot apical meristem (SAM) homeostasis integrates environmental and genetic cues to regulate growth dynamics that drive biomass accumulation and crop yield; however, no robust, non-destructive, quantitative proxy has been established for modeling or monitoring SAM-homeostasis-associated dynamics. Here, we developed a novel robot-based 3D imaging system and a custom pot-chamber gas exchange system to non-destructively measure plant occupation volume (POV) and whole-plant photosynthetic rate in wild-type Arabidopsis plants and nine mutants with disrupted SAM homeostasis. We demonstrate that POV robustly captures 3D plant architecture, whereas whole-plant photosynthetic rate serves as a superior proxy for optimal growth dynamics and final biomass associated with SAM homeostasis, outperforming conventional traits such as leaf number, leaf size, total leaf area, and rosette diameter. The strong positive correlations among POV, whole plant photosynthesis, and biomass accumulation establish a powerful new framework for quantitative studies of SAM homeostasis and data-driven evaluation of plant architecture.

Plant phenotyping relevance

ロボット3D画像とカスタムガス交換による非破壊的な植物形態・光合成表現型測定系を開発し、従来形質との比較検証も行っており、方法が研究の中心である。

Code and data availability

The paper's authors explicitly state that the Python source code for whole-plant leaf-area segmentation, 3D point cloud processing, POV calculation, and Mask3D-based segmentation is publicly available on GitHub at https://github.com/songqingfeng/AtPOVcalculator. This is a paper-specific, public, actionable analysis/PhD