Classifying Circumnutation in Pea Plants via Supervised Machine Learning

Climbing plants require an external support to grow vertically and enhance light acquisition. Climbers that find a suitable support demonstrate greater performance and fitness than those that remain prostrate. Support search is characterized by oscillatory movements (i.e., circumnutation), in which plants rotate around a central axis during their growth. Numerous studies have elucidated the mechanistic details of circumnutation, but how this phenomenon is controlled during support searching remains unclear. To fill this gap, here we tested whether simulation-based machine learning methods can capture differences in movement patterns nested in actual kinematical data. We compared machine learning classifiers with the aim of generating models that learn to discriminate between circumnutation patterns related to the presence/absence of a support in the environment. Results indicate that there is a difference in the pattern of circumnutation, depending on the presence of a support, that can be learned and classified rather accurately. We also identify distinctive kinematic features at the level of the junction underneath the tendrils that seems to be a superior indicator for discerning the presence/absence of the support by the plant. Overall, machine learning approaches appear to be powerful tools for understanding the movement of plants.