摘要Background:The increase in global population,climate change and stagnancy in crop yield on unit land area basis in recent decades urgently call for a new approach to support contemporary crop improvements.ePlant is a mathematical model of plant growth and development with a high level of mechanistic details to meet this challenge.Results:ePlant integrates modules developed for processes occurring at drastically different temporal (10-8-106 seconds) and spatial (10-10-10 meters) scales,incorporating diverse physical,biophysical and biochemical processes including gene regulation,metabolic reaction,substrate transport and diffusion,energy absorption,transfer and conversion,organ morphogenesis,plant environment interaction,etc.Individual modules are developed using a divide-and-conquer approach;modules at different temporal and spatial scales are integrated through transfer variables.We further propose a supervised learning procedure based on information geometry to combine model and data for both knowledge discovery and model extension or advances.We finally discuss the recent formation of a global consortium,which includes experts in plant biology,computer science,statistics,agronomy,phenomics,etc.aiming to expedite the development and application of ePlant or its equivalents by promoting a new model development paradigm where models are developed as a community effort instead of driven mainly by individual labs' effort.Conclusions:ePlant,as a major research tool to support quantitative and predictive plant science research,will play a crucial role in the future model guided crop engineering,breeding and agronomy.