OLIVER: A Tool for Visual Data Analysis on Longitudinal Plant Phenomics Data

Abstract There is a critical unmet need for new tools to analyze and understand “big data” in the biological sciences where breakthroughs come from connecting massive genomics data with complex phenomics data. By integrating instant data visualization and statistical hypothesis testing, we have developed a new tool called OLIVER for phenomics visual data analysis with a unique function that any user adjustment will trigger real-time display updates for any affected elements in the workspace. By visualizing and analyzing omics data with OLIVER, biomedical researchers can quickly generate hypotheses and then test their thoughts within the same tool, leading to efficient knowledge discovery from complex, multi-dimensional biological data. The practice of OLIVER on multiple plant phenotyping experiments has shown that OLIVER can facilitate scientific discoveries. In the use case of OLIVER for large-scale plant phenotyping, a quick visualization identified emergent phenotypes that are highly transient and heterogeneous. The unique circular heat map with false-color plant images also indicates that such emergent phenotypes appear in different leaves under different conditions, suggesting that such previously unseen processes are critical for plant responses to dynamic environments.