Plant Morphology and Function, Geometric Morphometrics, and Modelling: Decoding the Mathematical Secrets of Plants

Gao, Jie; Huang, Weiwei; Gielis, Johan; Shi, Peijian

doi:10.3390/plants12213724

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Recent advances in plant science have been more concentrated in biochemistry, genetics and the corresponding -omics approaches, rather than the classical morphological descriptions. Nevertheless, detailed quantitative morphological descriptions are needed for understanding plant-environmental interactions [47], as well as gene function and the relationship between gene activity and organ and tissue development [48]. In addition to their agronomic interest worldwide, the Cucurbitaceae have a background of morphological and phylogenetic studies and constitute an interesting system to study seed morphology.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geometric Analysis of Seed Shape Diversity in the Cucurbitaceae

Martín-Gómez,

Gutiérrez del Pozo,

Rodríguez-Lorenzo

et al. 2023

Seeds

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The Cucurbitaceae is a monophyletic family with close to 1000 species of climbers, including important agronomic species and varieties characterized by tendrils and pepo fruits. The seed’s morphology is varied, and the development and structure of the seed coat have been described in detail on some species. Overall description of the seed shape is based on terms comparing it with geometric figures, but quantitative methods are lacking in the literature. Here we apply a general morphological analysis to seeds of representative genera of the Cucurbitaceae, followed by curvature analysis in the poles and symmetry analysis. These methods are useful for the quantitative description of seed shape and the comparison between species and varieties. Differences between species were found for most morphological measurements, as well as for symmetry and curvature values. The comparison between three species of Cucumis (Cucumis sativus, C. myriocarpus and C. melo) and two varieties of C. melo reveals differences between species and varieties both in curvature and symmetry. The results obtained from both methods, curvature and symmetry analysis, form similar groupings in a cluster analysis. The methods described here were applied for the identification of agronomic varieties and the quantitative description of seed shape in taxonomy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%