What Do We Learn from Phenotyping Tools That Bridge the Gaps Between the Lab and the World?

Some of the most pressing open questions about photosynthesis concern how it is adapted to function in living organisms to balance the needs for efficient energy capture and the avoidance of toxic side reactions. The importance of this balancing is especially critical to cope with the dynamic environmental conditions experienced in the field. To address these questions, we need to observe the biophysical/biochemical machinery of photosynthesis in action under the conditions of the field. I will describe a series of enabling technologies designed to bridge the gaps between the lab and the field that can be and how these tools can be used to network communities of researchers to address this type of question. The technologies include: PhotosynQ.org - Community-driven plant phenotyping platform for data-driven innovations in science and agriculture; MultispeQ – A PhotosynQ-enabled tool for large-scale field phenotyping; CoralspeQ - A field-deployable phenotyping platform for corals, algae and cyanobacteria; Dynamic Environmental Phenotype Imager (DEPI)- A platform for high throughput dynamic plant phenotyping. I will describe new results using these tools to explore the relationships between photochemistry and photoprotection in a wide range of wild type and mutant plants, both in the lab and the field. The major outcomes of these experiments are the identification of a biophysical “Achilles Heel” of photosynthesis; the identification of a large number of “ancillary regulatory components” of photosynthesis to tune its responses to the environment; and practical applications of new phenotyping tools to improve the breeding and management of crops, especially in the developing world.