Article by Florence Danila: Recipient of the ComBio 2015 ASPS Student Poster Prize

A large majority of the human population depends on rice (Oryza sativa) for survival. Rice production needs to increase by 50% to support a higher demand for food forecasted over the next 35 years due to an increasing human population. Traditional breeding can only increase rice yield by 1% per annum. Switching the less efficient C₃ photosynthetic system of rice to use a more efficient C₄ photosynthesis, would theoretically increase productivity by 50%. The aim of the C₄ Rice Consortium is to add features of C₄ photosynthesis to the C₃ plant, rice. Therefore, it is essential to know whether rice can support the expected increase in metabolite flux between the leaf mesophyll (M) and bundle sheath (BS) cells after all the C₄ biochemistry has been installed. The main pathway for metabolite flux is symplastic, i.e. via the plasmodesmata (PD) connecting M and BS cells. Comparison of the symplastic transport mechanisms between the C₃ monocot crop, rice, and the C₄ plant, Setaria viridis was done by looking at the PD density and pit field distribution between the M and BS cells. Electron microscopy and 3D immunolocalisation showed that Setaria (C₄) has higher PD density and higher pit field area coverage on M/BS cell interface than rice (C₃). Establishing the numerical difference in terms of PD connections between C₃ and C₄ plants is not only relevant for the C₄ Rice Project but also in plant transport and modelling studies.

Acknowledgements:

ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia). International Rice Research Institute (Laguna, Philippines). CSIRO Agriculture (Canberra, Australia).

References:

Payne, J. A., Bleackley, M. R., Lee, T. H., Shafee, T. M., Poon, I. K., Hulett, M. D., . . . Anderson, M. A. (2016). The plant defensin NaD1 introduces membrane disorder through a specific interaction with the lipid, phosphatidylinositol 4,5 bisphosphate. Biochim Biophys Acta, 1858(6), 1099-1109. doi:10.1016/j.bbamem.2016.02.016

Poon, I. K., Baxter, A. A., Lay, F. T., Mills, G. D., Adda, C. G., Payne, J. A., … Hulett, M. D. (2014). Phosphoinositide-mediated oligomerization of a defensin induces cell lysis. eLife, 3, e01808. http://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01808

For more information email: ja2payne@students.latrobe.edu.au (La Trobe University, Melbourne Victoria Australia)

On behalf of Australian Society of Plant Scientists, I joined Science Meets Parliament (SMP) on the 1^st and 2^nd of March, 2016 in Canberra. The SMP aims to provide scientists unique opportunities to build mutual understanding and connections between scientists and parliamentarians and to better understand the policy making process connecting science and innovation that underpins Australia’s economic, social and environmental wellbeing.

Day 1 of the SMP started with an opening address given by Professor Brian Schmidt (AC, Nobel Laureate and Vice Chancellor of ANU) at the Hotel Realm. Prof Schmidt analysed a broad aspects of Australian Science and offered a few ‘tips’ on how to talk to politicians. This was followed by a vivid discussion and debate on ‘How to turn your science into news’, presented by Kylie Walker (Australian Academy of Science), Paul Bongiorno (Network Ten) and Alison Carabine (ABC radio). The meeting continued with an ‘Interactive session’ on rehearsing for parliamentary meetings and concluded with a Gala dinner at the Great Hall in Parliament House where key note speakers, the Hon Christopher Pyne MP, (Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) and the Hon Bill Shorten MP (Leader of the Opposition) addressed the audience outlining their policies and visions for the future of Australian science.

Day 2 featured face-to-face group meetings in Parliament House with Ministers, Parliamentary Members and Senators. Their were concurrent sessions on Science and Politics delivered by past and present Federal Chief Scientists, Professors Ian Chubb and Alan Finkel, respectively, as well as Aidan Byrne (ARC CEO Professor) and Senator Kim Carr (Shadow Minister for Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Industry).

The two-day event proved to be a very rewarding experience. It helped to better understand and appreciate the process of formulating science-related policies and decisions developed at the government level. It provided a unique opportunity to network with politicians, journalists and fellow scientists while advocating plant science to the broader community. To the latter, I attached here a photo with the Science Minister Chris Pyne at the Gala diner following his keynote speech and our informal discussion.

Email: yong-ling.ruan@newcastle.edu.au

ComBio2016: 3-7 October 2016 – Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre

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Announcing the call for applications for second round ASPS Robertson Travelling Fellowships award 2016;

2016 RN Robertson Travelling Fellowships, Round 2 applications close April 30th 2016.

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New employment opportunities are available at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Saudi Arabia

Global Plant Council E-Bulletin February 2016 Forward to a Friend |  | View web version (also click here to translate to other languages!)

Email Us GPC Website GPC Blog @GlobalPlantGPC @GPC_EnEspanol Facebook Donate E-Bulletin /  February 2016 Welcome to your monthly e-Bulletin from the Global Plant Council! As usual, this newsletter provides an overview of some of the new and fascinating plant science going on around the world, as well as details of new reports, funding opportunities, events and other information we thought you might find useful. Don’t forget to check out our website, blog and social media channels for even more content, and if you have any questions, comments or feedback for us then please send us an email!

Latest News /  View more…If you have news you would like us to share on our website, please contact lisa@globalplantcouncil.org  This month 58 new breaking news stories were posted on the GPC website including… In Nature Plants: Ancient flowering plant was beautiful, but probably poisonous Researchers have announced the discovery of the first-ever fossil specimens of an “asterid” – a family of flowering plants that gave us everything from the potato to tomatoes, tobacco, petunias and our morning cup of coffee. In New Phytologist: Study documents drought’s impact on redwood forest ferns A comprehensive study of water relations in native ferns, conducted during one of the worst droughts in California’s recent history, shows that extreme conditions have tested the limits of drought tolerance in these plants. High resolution insights into how roots grow Researchers in Frankfurt have used a high-tech optical microscope and computer simulation analysis to conclude that, in Arabidopsis, root shape is determined by a combination of genetic predisposition and the self-organization of cells. A new role for vitamin B6 in plants Researchers from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, have discovered an unexpected role for the micronutrient vitamin B6, in relation to nitrogen metabolism. Finding the best seeds to meet Africa’s needs A new coordinated soybean variety evaluation program is underway that will give African growers more and better seed options. Events / View more…If you have a conference, meeting, workshop, training course or other event coming up, we can include it in our Events calendar! Please email lisa@globalplantcouncil.org Plant Reproduction 2016: 24th International Congress on Sexual Plant Reproduction 18–23 March 2016. Tucson, Arizona, USA. UK Plant Sciences Federation Conference: PlantSci 2016 – Plants in a changing world: molecule to ecosystem 11–12 April 2016. Norwich, UK. International Conference on Pulses for Health, Nutrition and Sustainable Agriculture in Drylands 13–15 April 2016. Rabat, Morocco. Reports / New reports, and an archive of useful documents from the last few years, are available on our website. Head to the Resources page and click ‘Reports’. BREXIT and Agriculture (PDF) Ahead of a referendum in June 2016, this report by the UK’s Farmer–Scientist Network discusses the potential impact on agriculture of Great Britain’s exit (“BREXIT”) from the European Union. More…(PDF) Funding Opportunities / Spotted a funding opportunity we’ve missed? Please tell us about it by emailing lisa@globalplantcouncil.org This month we found some new funding opportunities, including the David Miller Travel Bursary Award for young plant scientists or horticulturalists from the UK and Ireland, travel and conference funding from the Australian Academy of Science Research, and the Bayer Foundation International Fellowship Program. More info…Congratulations also to Detlef Weigel, who has been awarded the 2016 GSA Medal of the Genetics Society of America. On the blog /  View more…Would you like to contribute an article to the GPC’s blog? Please get in touch! Email lisa@globalplantcouncil.org Flowers of the Global Plant Council Following on from December’s GigaScience post about sequencing the genome of Hong Kong’s national flower, Amelia Frizell-Armitage takes a look at some of the other national plants of our member organizations’ home countries. More…Integrated Pest Management Systems What is integrated pest management (IPM), and how is it achieved? All is explained in this GPC blog post. More… Plant Artificial Chromosome Technology Could artificial chromosome technology transform plant genetic engineering? Find out more about this emerging technology.  More… Members /  Click here for details of the GPC Member Organizations and representatives.  Please contact Ruth Bastow (ruth@globalplantcouncil.org) to find out how your organization can join the Global Plant Council.  The GPC is a coalition of plant and crop science societies from across the globe. The GPC seeks to bring plant scientists together to work synergistically toward solving the pressing problems we face. Please click here to make a donation via PayPal to help support the GPC.

Copyright © 2016 Global Plant Council, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive updates from the Global Plant Council. If you no longer wish to receive the monthly GPC E-Bulletin, or think you have received this email in error, please unsubscribe using the link provided. The Global Plant Council is a not-for-profit entity registered in Switzerland. Our registered mailing address is:  Global Plant Council 3rd Floor, Bow House 1a Bow Lane London, EC4M 9EE United Kingdom Add us to your address book

by ASPS student member Hannah Osborn (@han_osb321)

The sixteenth Science meets Parliament was held in Canberra last week, an event where over 200 scientists descend on Parliament House to learn about politics, policymaking and the media. I was fortunate enough to represent the Australian Society of Plant Scientists alongside Professor Yong-Ling Ruan from the University of Newcastle.

This annual event organised by Science and Technology Australia (STA) is a great opportunity for scientists to inform and excite politicians about science and at the same time learn about politics and the policy, media and parliamentary processes.

The event is held over two days the first day is to prepare us for meeting the politician, the second day is actually meeting them. Professor Brian Schmidt was up first offering many pearls of wisdom from his experiences dealing with politicians. Top tips included “Don’t get defensive”, “Don’t whinge or complain about lack of funding” and remember they’re human! We then heard from journalists Paul Bongiorno and Alison Carabine about the role of media in science. This session covered the importance of being engaging and communicating your science in a simple and direct way. The responsibility of the media to provide alternative views was also discussed with the emphasis on issues like climate change and vaccinations. Both journalists agreed that the alternative view should be proportional to the public interest. I believe the media could have more responsibility here in presenting scientific facts over the “conspiracy theories” but it shows how important it is to clearly and simply communicate your science for the public to make an informed decision.

Following this Catriona Jackson, CEO of STA chaired the session “Getting into policy: how to use science to shape public policy” with Professor Emily Banks, ANU and Dr Subho Banerjee, Department of Education and Training. This was a really interesting session covering the importance of policymakers and how politicians are actually really interested in science, we’re “pushing on an open door” and we need to make the most of this.

The afternoon session was spent working out what to expect from Science meets Parliament by a panel comprising Dr Jeremy Brownlie, STA, Professor Mark Hutchinson, ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, Dr Krystal Evans, BioMelbourne Network and Catriona Jackson, STA. The key message here was to make sure you have a key message when speaking with the politician and to know what you want out of the meeting, which could range from informing the politician of your science to inviting them to visit and see firsthand what goes on within your workplace.

Your science in 60 seconds was the interactive final session of the afternoon where Dr Rod Lamberts and Dr Will Grant both from ANU set a strict time limit for us to tell our science story. In a competitive elimination process where only the best moves forward to win a metaphorical bottle of wine all 200 of us got to practice communicating our science succinctly. Actual wine followed at the Gala dinner that night at Parliament House with Minister Christopher Pyne and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten both speaking about the importance of science and innovation.

The second day of Science meets Parliament involved actually meeting a politician. Personally, my experience was fantastic if not all too brief as the realities of life as a politician became clear. Throughout the rest of the day we were entertained by Q & A sessions with Professor Ian Chubb, former Chief Scientist as he reflected on his experiences in this position and then Senator Kim Carr, Shadow Minister for Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Industry. Senator Carr put into words how I believe a lot of people were feeling that CSIRO is not a glorified consultancy and if we keep going that direction we will undermine its status as our nations research centre completely.

The new Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel gave his first address at the National Press Club which I unfortunately missed as my meeting clashed with this event but I did get to attend the reality show also known as Question Time for the House of Representatives.

The day ended with a panel of politicians all passionate about science chaired by Genevieve Jacobs from ABC Canberra with Professor Aidan Byrne, ARC, the Hon Karen Andrews, Assistant Minister for Science, the Hon Richard Marles, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and Dr Adam Bandt, Industry, Energy, Science and Research spokesman.

Overall, the take home message from Science meets Parliament 2016 was Professor Graham Durant’s comment “science isn’t finished until it’s communicated” which is something we should all remember and include as an important part of our research.

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Dear ASPS members,

A further four PDF chapters  of Plants in Action 2nd edition are now available.

There are also new PhD scholarships and Post Doc opportunities available.

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Dear ASPS members,

Plants in Action 2nd edition is the on-line text book produced by the Australian and New Zealand societies of plant sciences freely available to users across the world.

Four chapters of Plants in Action 2nd edition are now available as PDF and  more will be added over the next few weeks.

These PDFs are meant for use in teaching. Students and researchers are encouraged to use the chapter title web links as material may be updated from time to time.

You can access the Plants in Action 2nd edition PDF page here.

Thanks to Rana Munns for her continuing dedication to this project.

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Dear ASPS members,

I want to draw your attention to the Borlaug Field Award. This award will recognize exceptional, science-based achievement in international agriculture and food production by an individual under 40 who has clearly demonstrated intellectual courage, stamina, and determination in the fight to eliminate global hunger and poverty. http://www.worldfoodprize.org/index.cfm?nodeID=39531&audienceID=1

If you think you or a colleague qualifies, please let me know so that we can assist with the nomination. We have until the end of June.

Sincerely

John Evans