Graham Farquhar – Senior Australian 2018

Graham started 2018 with yet another award on Australia Day – Senior Australian for 2018. For those of you unfamiliar with Graham, he has previously won the Prime Minister’s prize for Science in 2015, the Macfarlane Burnett medal from the AAS in 2016 and the Kyoto prize in 2017, to name the most recent. These awards are in recognition of his work that has led to wheat varieties with improved water use efficiency and improved representation of climate change trends associated with evaporation. Plants and water feature in both.

Australia has a significant grain growing industry reliant on rainfall rather than irrigation. Annual rainfall is low and variable between years and plays a major role in setting the potential yield that farmers can achieve. Together with colleagues, Graham developed two theoretical frameworks: firstly, a mathematical model describing photosynthesis based around the biochemical properties of the enzyme Rubisco (Farquhar, von Caemmerer & Berry, 1980) and secondly, equations describing what determines the stable isotopic composition of plants (Farquhar, O’Leary & Berry, 1982). There are two stable isotopic forms for carbon, 12C and 13C, with about 1% of the CO2 in the atmosphere containing 13C. Graham realised that carbon isotope discrimination could provide a way of capturing information about how much water a plant chose to spend in order to gain carbon. It turns out that the 13C/12C ratio in plant material is linearly related to the ratio of carbon gained in photosynthesis to water lost during transpiration. The measurement of the 13C/12C ratio of plant material allowed the identification of contrasting wheat lines and a trait that could be selected. Collaboration with the CSIRO plant breeder Richard Richards led to the release of commercial cultivars with greater yield under water limiting conditions for which they shared the Rank Prize in 2014. The carbon isotope theory has proved useful in a number of ways, in agriculture, ecophysiology and global flux models.

With regard to climate change, Graham’s interest in crop water use extended to larger environmental scales and he realised that some model predictions arising from climate change were misleading. Rather than atmospheric warming leading to an increase in potential evaporation, observations from instruments used by the Bureau of Meteorology and by farmers to schedule irrigation suggested the opposite trend (Roderick and Farquhar 2002).

Graham conducts his research at the Australian National University. He has been a strong supporter of Functional Plant Biology, publishing much of his stable isotope work there and encouraging others to do so.

Farquhar GD, von Caemmerer S, Berry JA. 1980. A biochemical model of photosynthetic CO2 assimilation in leaves of C3 species. Planta 149: 78-90.

Farquhar GD, O’Leary MH, Berry JA. 1982. On the relationship between carbon isotope discrimination and the intercellular carbon dioxide concentration in leaves. Australian Journal of Plant Physiology 9: 121-137.

Roderick ML, Farquhar GD. 2002. The cause of decreased pan evaporation over the past 50 years. Science 298: 1410-1411.

One week to get discounted registration for Science meets Parliament

It is with great pleasure that ASPS can announce that Dr Beth Loveys has been awarded the ASPS Teaching Award 2018 for her development, implementation and evaluation of innovative teaching practices in plant sciences.

Beth gained her PhD in plant ecophysiology under the supervision of Professor Steve Tyerman in 1998 from Flinders University in South Australia. During her first post-doctoral position at the University of York with Professor Owen Atkin, Beth began broadening her interest in plant physiology to examine the effects of climate change on plant growth, specifically temperature effects. This theme continued with her second post-doctoral position at the Australian National University where her work, with Professor Marilyn Ball as part of the CRC for Greenhouse Accounting, focused on impacts of elevated CO2. In her current position as an Education Specialist at The University of Adelaide Beth is able to inspire the next generation of plant scientists teaching into Bachelor of Agricultural Science, Bachelor of Viticulture and Oenology and Applied Biology. Improving student engagement in all areas of plant science has been Beth’s motivation in recent years by the use of blended and active learning pedagogy. Beth’s success in implementing innovative teaching methodologies has been recognised by an Office of Learning and Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2015.

Beth will give an award lecture at COMBIO 2018, to be held in Sydney 23-26th September 2018, detailing her many innovations in plant science teaching.

Many congratulations from ASPS.

_________________

Professor Matthew Gilliham

ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology

Deputy Head of School (Research)

School of Agriculture, Food and Wine

University of Adelaide

Ph: +61 8 8313 8145 | Twitter: @IonPlants

Lab website: Plant Transport and Signalling Lab

Honorary Secretary, Aust Soc Plant Scientists

Dear ASPS members,

It seems like only yesterday I wrote to you in my new role of the Society’s President, and now it is time to wrap 2017 and reflect on events and achievements. Indeed, time flies.

For me the last 12 months have been extremely busy and rather hectic and I can bet that most of you will probably say the same. What worries me the most is that, in a constant chase of deadlines, we often do not have to time to enjoy what we are doing. The joy of getting some exciting result or having a grant funded or a paper accepted is usually short-lived and is soon replaced by a pressing need to meet yet another deadline. Do you have the same feeling?

To change this worrisome pattern I have decided to break the tradition of spending Sunday morning editing student’s papers (isn’t this our usual routine these days?) and spend a few minutes reflecting on what the Society has achieved in 2017.

The Combio meeting in Adelaide was a great success. Many thanks to all ASPS members involved in making it happening and, specifically, to Matt Gilliham and Rachel Burton who took a major workload in organizing this event. We are also looking forward towards equally successful Sydney meeting in 2018.

Many thanks to all of you who have managed to find a time in a busy schedule and attend AGM meeting at Combio. Those who can’t make it or did not attend the conference for one or another reason, can find a brief snapshot of major events and achievements in my report on ASPS website. Right now I want to briefly inform you on some progress made after the meeting, to implement new initiatives approved by the Society.

One of the central topics during the ASPS executive  meeting in Adelaide was an issue of a gender equality in plant science. In order to bridge the existing gap, we have decided to introduce a new award that will be given to an early or mid-career female researcher in recognition of outstanding research conducted subsequent to her PhD. This award is named after Jan Anderson – a pre-eminent scientist and a foundation member of this Society. Now I am very pleased to inform you that this award has been formally launched, and the application for the inaugural 2018 Anderson Award is opened from Dec 1, with submission deadline being Feb 28, 2018. For more details and submission guidelines please visit ASPS website. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to three of the sponsors of this award:  CSIRO Agriculture and Food, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis. We are looking for your nominations and thrilled to celebrate excellence in research by our leading Society female members.

Talking about awards, the decision has been also made to introduce several discipline-specific awards given to ECR on a bi-annual basis. We are working on this right now and hope to finalize the rules in early 2018. I will keep you posted on progress.

I thank you all for your contribution to the Society and also for the front line work as a researcher you are doing to promote the image of Australian plant science. I wish you all the best for the new 2018 and hope you can soon get a well-deserved rest and enjoy a break.

Sergey Shabala

Dear ASPS members,

We have a few new opportunities for you and the monthly GPC e-bulletin.

• There is an opportunity to nominate for the STA Executive Committee – NOTE applications are due today (see details below)
• The 2018 Peter Goldacre award is open. Nominations close 9 December 2017. Apply here.
• The 2018 ASPS teaching award  is open. Applications close 9 December 2017. Apply here.
• The RN Robertson Travelling Fellowship award is open. Applications close 19th January  2018. Apply here.
• A new employment opportunity has been posted. More details here.
• A conference added to our events page. more details here.

Dear ASPS members,

The STA Executive Committee closes on Monday 6 November. You will find details at https://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/search-begins-for-stem-leaders-to-join-sta-executive-committee/.

Voting will take place at the AGM on 23 November. Please consider applying.

Thank you in advance and best regards,

Shannon Wong

Hello ASPS members,

Please find documents for our AGM below.

2017 AGM Agenda

2017 President Report

2017 Treasurer report

2017 WSCS Report

2017 FPB report

Dear ASPS members,

We have a few new employment opportunities on our job board.

I am writing to let you know we do not currently have any Australian Society of Plant Scientists registered to attend Science meets Business.

We hope that some of our members, particularly those in NSW, will be able to make the most of this great opportunity to bring Science & Technology together with the Business community.  Please find the registration link below for your convenience:

https://sta.eventsair.com/science-meets-business-2017/registration/Site/Register

Registrations will close Monday COB 30 October.

If you have any questions regarding Science meets Business please do not hesitate to email event organiser, Mitchell Piercey.

Kind regards, Sergey Shabala

Dear ASPS members,

We have a few new employment opportunities on our job board.

I am writing to let you know we do not currently have any Australian Society of Plant Scientists registered to attend Science meets Business.

We hope that some of our members, particularly those in NSW, will be able to make the most of this great opportunity to bring Science & Technology together with the Business community.  Please find the registration link below for your convenience:

https://sta.eventsair.com/science-meets-business-2017/registration/Site/Register

Registrations will close Monday COB 30 October.

If you have any questions regarding Science meets Business please do not hesitate to email event organiser, Mitchell Piercey.

Kind regards, Sergey Shabala