About stomata
What are stomata? Stomata (singular stoma) refers to the complex consisting of a pair of specialised cells, called guard cells, surrounding a pore on the surface of above-ground plant organs. Through changes in turgor pressure of the guard cells, the pore aperture adjusts to facilitate, or restrict, the exchange of gases between the plant and the atmosphere.
Why are stomata important? Plants respond to signals such as increased light intensity and humidity to increase pore aperture and thus open stomata. Whilst this enables uptake of carbon dioxide required for photosynthesis, water vapour is simultaneously lost. Stomata occupy less than 5% of the leaf epidermal surface, but can account for up to 98% of gas exchange.
Deep learning for the analysis of stomata. Deep learning is particularly effective for image analysis, enabling automated measurement of traits such as stomatal counts or density, area measurements and/or morphology. These methods require annotated datasets for training, and network structure can be adapted to the image analysis task.