High-Throughput Physiology-Based Stress Response Phenotyping: Advantages, Applications and Prospective in Horticultural Plants

Abstract Phenomics is a new branch of science that provides high-throughput quantification of plant and animal traits at systems level. The last decade has witnessed great successes in high-throughput phenotyping of numerous morphological traits, yet major challenges still exist in precise phenotyping of physiological traits such as transpiration and photosynthesis. Due to the highly dynamic nature of physiological traits in responses to the environment, appropriate selection criteria and efficient screening systems at the physiological level for abiotic stress tolerance have been largely absent in plants. In this review, the current status of phenomics techniques was briefly summarized in horticultural plants. Specifically, the emerging field of high-throughput physiology-based phenotyping, which is referred to as “physiolomics”, for drought stress responses was highlighted. In addition to analyzing the advantages of physiology-based phenotyping over morphology-based approaches, recent examples that applied high-throughput physiological phenotyping to model and non-model horticultural plants were revisited and discussed. Based on the collective findings, we propose that high-throughput, non-destructive, and automatic physiological assays can and should be used as routine methods for phenotyping stress response traits in horticultural plants.