Abstract
Abstract The interaction between carbon and flows within the vasculature is at the centre of most growth and developmental processes. Understanding how these fluxes influence each other, and how they respond to heterogeneous environmental conditions, is important to answer diverse questions in agricultural and natural ecosystem sciences. However, due to the high complexity of the plant–environment system, specific tools are needed to perform such quantitative analyses. Here, we present CPlantBox, a whole-plant modelling framework based on the root system model CRootBox. CPlantBox is capable of simulating the growth and development of a variety of plant architectures (root and shoot). In addition, the flexibility of CPlantBox enables its coupling with external modelling tools. Here, we connected the model to an existing mechanistic model of water and carbon flows in the plant, PiafMunch. The usefulness of the CPlantBox modelling framework is exemplified in five case studies. Firstly, we illustrate the range of plant structures that can be simulated using CPlantBox. In the second example, we simulated diurnal carbon and water flows, which corroborates published experimental data. In the third case study, we simulated impacts of heterogeneous environment on carbon and water flows. Finally, we showed that our modelling framework can be used to fit phloem pressure and flow speed to (published) experimental data. The CPlantBox modelling framework is open source, highly accessible and flexible. Its aim is to provide a quantitative framework for the understanding of plant–environment interaction.
Highlights
Plants contribute for around 80% of the global biomass [1], and they strongly control land surface fluxes of water and carbon
Root architecture is known to have an impact on water uptake [11,12], while shoot structure has an impact on carbon assimilation [13–15]
Stem branching patterns are important factors determining the above-ground architecture of g plants. fig. 5A shows an example of three branching patterns generated by CPlantBox using different parameter files
Summary
Plants contribute for around 80% of the global biomass [1], and they strongly control land surface fluxes of water and carbon. Plant water uptake constitutes a major part of the evaporative flux at the land surface but its prediction is extremely variable and uncertain [2–. As such, understanding the interplay between plant carbon and water flow and their environment is of importance to answer diverse questions in forest, agriculture and environmental sciences. The flows of water and carbon in the plant are constrained by both local and overall structures [7–10]. Root architecture is known to have an impact on water uptake [11,12], while shoot structure has an impact on carbon assimilation [13–15]. From an entire plant perspective, root and shoot are tightly connected, forming a complex and dynamic continuum between water and carbon flow. Knowing the connecting structure of both shoot and root is needed to understand plants better
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