| Popis: |
Root metabolic costs and functions are largely determined by their anatomical structure, which substantially varies with both plant species and environments. Evaluating the impact of anatomical variation in roots on soil exploration efficiency is a daunting task. Given this, a novel multicellular functional-structural model of root anatomy, named RootSlice, was developed to investigate the influence of different anatomical phenes on its underlying rhizoeconomics. The model can capture the true-to-type three-dimensional root anatomy of different root classes, development zones, and crop species. For maize nodal roots, the model underpinned the role of vacuole expansion in cell elongation; and confirmed the individual and synergistic role of increasing root cortical aerenchyma and lowering the number of cortical cell files in reducing the root metabolic costs. Integration of the RootSlice-derived rhizoeconomic variables for different root zones as the temporal properties of the nodal roots in the OpenSimRoot/maize model led to the multiscale evaluation of root anatomical phenotypes, highlighting the role of aerenchyma formation in enhancing the utility of cortical cell files for improving plant performance over varying soil nitrogen supply. Such integrative in silico approaches presents a new avenue for exploring the utility of diverse root anatomical phenotypes for plant fitness. |
