Jülich Plant Science Seminars (JPSS) - Llorenç Cabrera-Bosquet - "Extracting Relevant Traits from Phenotyping Platforms: Beyond High-Throughput" - INRAE Montpellier - 2nd of September 2024
Invitation to the Jülich Plant Science Seminar (JPSS) - Llorenç Cabrera-Bosquet
Title: Extracting Relevant Traits from Phenotyping Platforms: Beyond High-Throughput
Speaker: Llorenç Cabrera-Bosquet
Affiliation: INRAE Montpellier, FR
Abstract:
M3P (Montpellier Plant Phenotyping Platforms), a node of PHENOME-EMPHASIS, provides access to three state-of-the-art platforms under controlled or semi-controlled conditions to evaluate plant responses to environmental cues. These platforms generate extensive multi-source and multi-scale data, including plant images, dynamic traits (such as transpiration, plant growth, and development kinetics), and environmental data. Despite their data generation capabilities, there remains a need for methods to extract biologically relevant traits suitable for genetic analyses and modelling.
To address this, M3P has implemented a strategy centred on the development and interfacing of a number of methods and tools to transform signals into data and data into knowledge. This involves the development of (i) ontology-based information systems to integrate and share multi-source and multi-scale phenomic data, incorporating knowledge and metadata, (ii) methods to characterise environmental conditions as experienced by individual plants using microsensors and modelling, (iii) Image Analysis Pipelines employing computer vision and robotics to process and analyse plant images and (iv) the coupling of Functional-Structural Models with 3D plant reconstructions to enhance understanding of plant structure and function.
By interfacing these methods and tools, M3P provides access to "hidden variables" that encapsulate spatial and temporal environmental variations, growth and transpiration responses to evaporative demand and water deficit, and reproductive growth responses to changes in environmental conditions. This enables the identification of heritable physiological traits valuable for genetic analyses and crop modelling, thereby facilitating large-scale genetic studies of various components of plant performance.