In this dissertation we are interested in how shoot structure emerges from the functioning of their apical meristem. For this, we investigate the structure of Arabidopsis thaliana shoot apical meristem at different scales. The thesis starts by studying at macroscopic scale plants in which the regularity of phyllotaxis has been perturbed and developing mathematical tools to quantify and analyze such complex patterns. Then we try to investigate at more microscopic scales what can be the reasons for such perturbations. For this we tested an extended version of Douady and Couder's model (1996) in which several key parameters are varied by adding different sources of noise. This modeling study enables us to hypothesize that the stability in size of both the primordia inhibition zone and the central zone may be key factors in phyllotaxis robustness. While realistic 3D models of primordia inhibitory fields have been developed recently, such a study is still missing for realistic 3D tissues in the case of the central zone. This lead us finally to analyze in depth the gene regulatory network that controls the size of the central zone in the meristem. We implemented a 3D version of a model in literature modulating the size of the central zone and tested this model on 3D meristem cellular structures obtained from 3D laser microscope images.
