Project Details
Projekt
Modelling self-organisation in the rhizosphere
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Andrea Schnepf
Subject Area
Soil Sciences
Fluid Mechanics
Fluid Mechanics
Term
since 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 403641034
Although recent years have seen a lot of progress, understanding the local interactions of multiple rhizosphere processes occurring at different spatial and temporal scales and the resulting emerging properties at the plant scale remains a major challenge. Linking rhizosphere processes across scales is thus an important task of modelling in order to improve our system understanding. In Phase I, we further developed a multiscale multicomponent modelling approach that allows the consideration of rhizosphere processes at the root system scale. We integrated data measured by SPP partners, such as µCT images of root system architecture of two maize genotypes grown in two different substrates, or rhizosphere gradients of bulk density, into our simulations and evaluated the effect of these data onto emerging properties such as root water uptake or exudation patters and hotspot dynamics. In Phase II, we will further extend our modelling and model-data integration approach. In work package 1, our aim is to make more systematic use of the root observations from both lab and field studies of our SPP partners to reconstruct the 3D root system architectures and to parameterise our root architecture model CPlantBox. The aim of work package 2 is to use modelling to evaluate the impact of bulk density and mucilage concentration gradients in the rhizosphere on the water uptake of a growing root system under the impact of the two substrates and genotypes. Using the reconstructed root system architectures of soil column experiments, we will be able to create a virtual representation of the soil column experiments. In this way, we will use the model to improve our understanding of the system. We hypothesize that these rhizosphere gradients affect the onset of water stress during soil drying as well as on the pace of rewetting. Work package 3 will investigate the spatiotemporal rhizodeposition patterns around growing root systems and their impact on root nutrient uptake under the consideration of different root architectures of the two genotypes, and two different substrates. One main goal is to use the model to explain patterns that were experimentally observed in column experiments. Furthermore, we will simulate root development (using the root architecture model parameter set obtained in work package 1) and corresponding rhizodeposit and nutrient patterns of mature plants in a field-scale setup that represents a virtual representation of the central field experiment of the priority programme. Here the focus will be to understand the role of the different root types of mature maize plants. In work package 4, we will combine parameterisations from the previous work packages. Furthermore, we will create simulation setups not only for maize but also for barley using experimental data shared by SPP partners. This will enable us to understand if a specific behaviour is plant species specific or valid across the two species.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
