ABSTRACT
The main purpose of this chapter is to discuss the interest of using mathematical simulation models to study the development and the architecture of root systems. Methodological difficulties and the development of new techniques and methods for studying root systems have long been, and still are, a dominant subject in the scientific literature on roots (see review by Böhm, 1979, and Chapter 18 by Polomski and Kuhn in this volume). These efforts have led to significant advances in the way of conducting experiments on roots, and obtaining more reliable data at various scales and in various conditions. Another major issue, often overshadowed until now because data acquisition appeared as the true bottleneck, is the parallel development of concepts and models to acquire, interpret, and use these new data. The set of roots, organized into a root system, can either be considered per se or as part of the larger soil-plant system (soil-plant system), as a complex system requiring specific tools and methods to be studied (Legay, 1997). The behavior of each component is the result of numerous interactions, many of which cannot be discarded without taking the risk of distorting the image of the system under study. Therefore, I would like to emphasize the methodological purpose of this chapter. The models will be mainly reviewed as tools corresponding to research steps, associated with various viewpoints on the investigated system.
