—Precise estimates of past temperatures are critical for understanding the evolution of organisms and the physical biosphere, and data from continental areas are an indispensable complement to the marine record of stable isotopes. Climate is considered to be a primary selective force on leaf morphology, and two widely used methods exist for estimating past mean annual temperatures from assembla...

In the frame of a tree species identifying mobile application, designed for a wide scope of users, and with didactic purposes, we developed a method based on the computation of explicit leaf shape descriptors inspired by the criteria used in botany. This paper focuses on the characterization of the leaf contour, the extraction of its properties, and its description using botanical terms. Contou...

Maize (Zea mays) leaves develop basipetally (tip to base); the upper blade emerges from the shoot apical meristem (SAM) before the expansion of the lower sheath. Founder cells, leaf initials located in the periphery of the SAM, are distinguished from the SAM proper by the differential accumulation of KNOX proteins. KNOX proteins accumulate in the SAM, but are excluded from maize leaf primordia ...

Multiple features such as the margin, the shape and the texture of plant leaves are of great importance for classification of plant species, as they are often regarded as the unique features to identify plants. In this paper, we study the performance of a recently proposed semi-supervised fuzzy clustering algorithm with feature discrimination for leaf classification, based on features generated...

Elucidating the genetic basis of morphological changes in evolution remains a major challenge in biology. Repeated independent trait changes are of particular interest because they can indicate adaptation in different lineages or genetic and developmental constraints on generating morphological variation. In animals, changes to "hot spot" genes with minimal pleiotropy and large phenotypic effec...

Biological shapes are often produced by the iterative generation of repeated units. The mechanistic basis of such iteration is an area of intense investigation. Leaf development in the model plant Arabidopsis is one such example where the repeated generation of leaf margin protrusions, termed serrations, is a key feature of final shape. However, the regulatory logic underlying this process is u...

Leaf shape in Arabidopsis is modulated by patterning events in the margin that utilize a PIN-based auxin exporter/CUC2 transcription factor system to define regions of promotion and retardation of growth, leading to morphogenesis. In addition to auxin exporters, leaves also express auxin importers, notably members of the AUX1/LAX family. In contrast to their established roles in embryogenesis, ...