Researchers and students at the University of Queensland are being given a unique insight into the micro-world of plants and insects thanks to the latest in computer technology.
Through collaboration with CSIRO Entomology, the University has access to software for measuring the 3D structure of plants, while working with computer experts in Canada gives the University access to another package which creates "virtual plants".
Morphogenesis is the process by which plants build and adjust their growing architecture, at the same time changing to cope with such environmental factors as insects, the weather and diseases.
Using measurements of real plants or hypotheses about how they might function under certain conditions,?vlab' (virtual laboratory in botany) provides the means to simulate and study such changes in minute detail.
One of the key people studying the intimate relationship between insects and plant architecture is Dr Peter Room who was a program leader at the CRC for Tropical Pest Management based at the University.
That centre is now being dismantled but six continuing activities are still funded by the CRC including one at the Long Pocket laboratories of CSIRO Entomology where Dr Room currently works.
"We have put together a set of computer-based tools which are proving useful in several different branches of plant science," he said.
"Virtual plants are computer simulations of plant morphogenesis. As well as numerical output, the ?vlab' can produce stunningly realistic images and time-lapse movies of plant development and growth which can be manipulated in 3D and viewed from any direction."
Dr Room said the activities of insects and plant pathogens could be included in these models to look at ecosystem dynamics at the scale of a single plant or small stands of plants.
Already virtual plants are playing a vital role in a number of research projects around the University and work is underway in other areas where the new technology may prove beneficial.
o Nicholas Woods is leading a team at the Gatton campus Centre for Pesticide Application and Safety, researching how pesticides become deposited on crops. Virtual cotton and sweetcorn models will be used to predict how much pesticide is likely to impact on heliothis moth caterpillars, the major pest of these crops.
o In the School of Land and Food, Dr Steve Adkins is interested in a virtual model of parthenium, a weed which causes serious human allergy and other problems. One of the approaches he is exploring is to control the weed by using an introduced gall-forming insect to disrupt the plant's growth and stop production of seed and the allergic pollen.
o Drs Myron Zalucki and Tony Clarke are using the ?vlab' tools in their research into insect movement at the Entomology Department.
o In the Botany Department and CRC for Tropical Plant Pathology, Dr Sukumar Chakraborty and his students have built virtual models of the pasture legume stylosanthes to help understand how it interacts with its major disease anthracnose. They are also examining how increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide due to predicted climate changes will affect stylosanthes plants and subsequent transmission of the disease by rain splash.
o Dr Bob Colomb and his PhD student Phoebe Chen, in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, are developing plant architecture bioinformatics techniques for processing outputs from virtual plant simulations.
o The Federal Department of Industry, Science and Technology has provided travel funds over three years for University and CSIRO entomology and botany researchers to work with colleagues in Canada and France. In France, Dr Bruno Andrieu is an expert in simulating micro-climatic conditions in virtual plant canopies. His work enables UQ scientists to take account of variations in radiation, temperature and humidity when simulating activities of insects and plant diseases.
The number of linkages through the new technology into various areas of the University, including mathematics and computer science - and the prospect of more to follow - has prompted plans to apply for an Australian Research Council Special Research Centre.
The Centre for the Architectural Ecology of Plants, jointly funded by the ARC and the University, would enable these types of collaborations to be better coordinated, expanded and resourced, said Dr Room.
"The field is presenting a great opportunity for productive synergies between mathematics, computer science, biology and agriculture," he said.
"The ultimate payoffs should include greater ability to manipulate the gene-environment interactions which determine plant morphology, and practical benefits in fields ranging from genetic engineering and plant breeding to forestry, agronomy and management of pests and diseases."
For further information, contact Dr Peter Room (telephone 3214 2806); Dr Myron Zalucki (3365 2194); Dr Steve Adkins (3365 2072); Nicholas Woods (5460 1293).
