Lead Chief Investigator: Christine Beveridge, The University of Queensland
Integration of physiology and development of traits underpinning plant success
Objectives
- Integrate mechanisms of physiology and plant development that are known to affect different aspects of plant success.
- Describe how components of these mechanisms interact and how that interaction leads to observable traits in the plant—the phenotype.
The mechanisms we are working on include branching, flowering and symbioses. They encompass how water, carbohydrates, amino acids, sugar and nutrient transport and signalling work, together with hormones, to drive these processes.
Genes, molecular interactions, hormones, sizes and numbers of plant parts, and the environment are also at play.
Understanding all of this is a huge and long vision
Our Approach
We will start by integrating our team’s extensive knowledge of these mechanisms with existing knowledge.
Building on existing connections within and between mechanisms, we will discover new connections through classical approaches such as:
- genetic analyses of mutant combinations
- physiological studies (such as grafting)
- environmental responses (photoperiod, heat, water challenges).
Building on existing connections within and between mechanisms, we will discover new connections through classical approaches such as:
- genetic analyses of mutant combinations
- physiological studies (such as grafting)
- environmental responses (photoperiod, heat, water challenges).
We will also use phenotypic, transcriptomic and metabolomics analyses.
Our initial focus will be on model systems (e.g. garden pea, Arabidopsis) where the mechanistic networks are well understood.
In collaboration with the complex mathematical networks project and the model emulation project, we will build models that test our understanding and that interpret transcriptome and metabolome data. This will lead to the discovery of more genes and more knowledge about these mechanisms.
All of our work in this project feeds into our program on predicting phenotypes, mainly through the project: Discovering new pathways to enhance breeding predictions by integrating genome to phenome and hierarchical biological models.
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The ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past, present and emerging.
