PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Abigail E. Bryson
AU  - Maya Wilson Brown
AU  - Joey Mullins
AU  - Wei Dong
AU  - Keivan Bahmani
AU  - Nolan Bornowski
AU  - Christina Chiu
AU  - Philip Engelgau
AU  - Bethany Gettings
AU  - Fabio Gomezcano
AU  - Luke M. Gregory
AU  - Anna C. Haber
AU  - Donghee Hoh
AU  - Emily E. Jennings
AU  - Zhongjie Ji
AU  - Prabhjot Kaur
AU  - Sunil K. Kenchanmane Raju
AU  - Yunfei Long
AU  - Serena G. Lotreck
AU  - Davis T. Mathieu
AU  - Thilanka Ranaweera
AU  - Eleanore J. Ritter
AU  - Rie Sadohara
AU  - Robert Z. Shrote
AU  - Kaila E. Smith
AU  - Scott J. Teresi
AU  - Julian Venegas
AU  - Hao Wang
AU  - McKena L. Wilson
AU  - Alyssa R. Tarrant
AU  - Margaret H. Frank
AU  - Zoë Migicovsky
AU  - Jyothi Kumar
AU  - Robert VanBuren
AU  - Jason P. Londo
AU  - Daniel H. Chitwood
TI  - Composite modeling of leaf shape across shoots discriminates <em>Vitis</em> species better than individual leaves
AID  - 10.1101/2020.06.22.163899
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.06.22.163899
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/23/2020.06.22.163899.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/23/2020.06.22.163899.full
AB  - Premise of study Leaf morphology is dynamic, continuously deforming during leaf expansion and among leaves within a shoot. We measured leaf morphology from over 200 vines over four years, and modeled changes in leaf shape along the shoot to determine if a composite “shape of shapes” can better capture variation and predict species identity compared to individual leaves.Methods Using homologous universal landmarks found in grapevine leaves, we modeled various morphological features as a polynomial function of leaf node. The resulting functions are used to reconstruct modeled leaf shapes across shoots, generating composite leaves that comprehensively capture the spectrum of possible leaf morphologies.Results We found that composite leaves are better predictors of species identity than individual leaves from the same plant. We were able to use composite leaves to predict species identity of previously unassigned vines, which were verified with genotyping.Discussion Observations of individual leaf shape fail to capture the true diversity between species. Composite leaf shape—an assemblage of modeled leaf snapshots across the shoot—is a better representation of the dynamic and essential shapes of leaves, as well as serving as a better predictor of species identity than individual leaves.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.