Flowers are considered as the most complex structures in plants. The number and arrangement of floral organs, known as the floral ground plan, exhibits enormous diversity and plays a vital role for reproductive fitness. We employ the flower of woodland strawberry as a model to study this diversity, as it combines multiple unique features which represent a variety of variations observed in Angiosperm flowers. Combining state-of-art microscopic, spatial transcriptomics and computational modelling methods, we aim to provide mechanistic insights on how floral organs are precisely positioned within a flower, and how floral organ numbers are varied. The knowledge from this work benefits breeding practices in cultivated strawberry, for better crop yield and quality.

2024

2028