Longitudinal Pattern of Aerenchyma Formation Using the Ti-Gompertz Model in Rice Adventitious Roots

Abstract

The longitudinal pattern of root aerenchyma formation of its relationship with the function of adventitious roots in rice remains unclear. In this study, the percentage of the aerenchyma area to the cross-sectional area (i.e., aerenchyma percentage) was fit with four non-linear models, namely, W0-Gompertz, Ti-Gompertz, logistic, and von Bertalanffy. Goodness-of-fit criteria such as the R2, the Akaike information criterion (AIC), and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) were used to select the model. The bias of the parameters was evaluated using the difference between the ordinary least squares-based parameter estimates and the mean of 1,000 bootstrap-based parameter estimates and the symmetry of the distributions of these parameters. The results showed that the Ti-Gompertz model, which had a high goodness-of-fit with an R2 close to 1, lower AIC and BIC values, parameter estimates close to being unbiased, and good linear approximation, provided the best fit for the longitude pattern of rice aerenchyma formation with different root lengths among the competing models. Using the second- and third-order derivatives according to the distance from the root apex, the critical points of Ti-Gompertz were calculated. The rapid stage for aerenchyma formation was from the maximum acceleration point (1.38–1.76 cm from the root apex) to the maximum deceleration point (3.13–4.19 cm from the root apex). In this stage, the aerenchyma percentage increased by 5.3–15.7% per cm, suggesting that the cortical cells tended to die rapidly for the aerenchyma formation rather than for the respiration cost during this stage. Meanwhile, the volume of the aerenchyma of the entire roots could be computed using the integral function of the Ti-Gompertz model. We proposed that the longitudinal pattern of root aerenchyma formation modeled by the Ti-Gompertz model helped to deeply understand the relationship between the anatomical traits and physiological function in rice adventitious roots.

Transcriptional signatures associated with waterlogging stress responses and aerenchyma formation in barley root tissue

“…Previous studies reported that aerenchyma percentage varies substantially depending on the sampling location within the root (distance from the base or root) (Bouranis et al, 2006;Chen et al, 2021;Xu et al, 2013) but they did not investigate differences in aerenchyma levels observed between roots of the same individual. In this study, we observed a high intra-individual variation in this trait, demonstrated by large differences in percentage aerenchyma between two adventitious roots sampled per plant.…”