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Science Meets Parliament, 1-2 March

Hello members,

Each year we get two spaces in the Science Meets Parliament that is organised by Science Technology Australia, the peak body representing science societies. We need to register by 19 Feb, so if you are interested, please email me urgently John.Evans@anu.edu.au

The society covers the cost of the event for the two participants (travel, accommodation and registration) and more information can be found at

http://scienceandtechnologyaustralia.org.au/ You will learn about journalism, who to get a message across and get to meet a politician.

thanks

John Evans

38th New Phytologist Symposium:

Colonization of the terrestrial environment 2016

25-27 July 2016, Bristol, UK

Travel grant submission deadline: Thursday 21st April 2016

Poster abstract submission deadline: Thursday 19th May 2016

The purpose of this symposium is to explore the contribution that plants and mycorrhizal fungi made to the colonization of the terrestrial environment. Building on the success of the 25th New Phytologist Symposium, the focus will be on exploring current uncertainties in four major themes:

1) Interrelationships;

2) Anatomy – developmental genetics;

3) Refining biogeochemical models to take account of the role of plants and fungi; and

4) Anatomy and physiology of early land plants – what can we learn from extant species?

The meeting will take place over three days in Bristol, UK. There will be a number of invited and selected talks (chosen from submitted poster abstracts). There will also be dedicated time for a poster session and conference dinner.

Keynote speakers:

Liam Dolan, University of Oxford, UK; Ned Friedman, Harvard University, USA; Tim Lenton, University of Exeter, UK

https://newphytologist.org/symposia/38

37th New Phytologist Symposium:

Plant developmental evolution

Beijing, China

Travel grant submission deadline: Thursday 25th February 2016

Poster abstract submission deadline: Thursday 17th March 2016

The relatively new field of plant evolutionary-developmental biology (‘evo-devo’) seeks to understand how and why plant morphological characters have evolved to produce the tremendous diversity of form in living plants. This meeting will draw together researchers in plant evo-devo for exchange of ideas, current research, and discussion of future directions for the field.

Sessions:

floral development; vegetative meristems, leaves, and inflorescences; plasticity and life history evo-devo; selected poster abstract talks.

Eighteen leading scientists will speak at the Symposium. We hope that this will stimulate focused discussion and the exchange of ideas at what will be a relatively small (around 120 delegates) and informal meeting. There will be a poster session, selected talks, discussion and a conference dinner.

Keynote speakers:

Beverley Glover, University of Cambridge, UK; Mark Rausher Duke University, USA; Miltos Tsiantis, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Germany.

https://newphytologist.org/symposia/37

Ninth Australian Conference on Grassland Invertebrate Ecology

4-7 April 2016, Western Sydney University, Australia

The conference focuses on the biology, ecology and management of both pest and beneficial invertebrates in native and introduced grasslands including pastures, pasture/crop rotations and turf.

The Conference (grassbugs.com.au) will be hosted by the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at the historic Hawkesbury campus of Western Sydney University. The campus is nestled at the foot of the Blue Mountains and has been a hub of agricultural research and training since 1891. Grassland research, in particular, has featured prominently at the site with modern Australian grasses first used and developed on the Hawkesbury campus in the 1920s. The Conference will be held over three days including a half day field trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens in the Blue Mountains.

5^th International Symposium on Soil Organic Matter, Göttingen, Germany, September 20-25^th

A whole week of soil organic matter! While many Europeans commented that it was a long way to come for a conference, the nine Australians lucky enough to attend SOM2015 all agreed that we found it thoroughly worthwhile. On the pre-conference field trip, Brian Wilson, Samantha Grover and a dozen other scientists visited peatlands under a range of agricultural uses and had fun flitting back and forth across the former border between East and West Germany. Schnapps tasting at a former convent ended the day but set the scene for the conference proper, which featured different local beers during the poster sessions every evening. Lynne Macdonald, Mark Farrell, Gaelle Ng, Tom Baker, BP Singh, Bhawana Bhatta and Jessica Ernakovich joined Brian Wilson and Samantha Grover to present a wide range of the SOM research from Australia. Outputs from the National Soil Carbon Program were abundant. The Australian contingent joined delegates from more than 50 countries, who presented 161 talks over four days, selected from more than 600 submitted abstracts. The bar was set high, with opening keynote addresses from Rattan Lal and Johan Six. All agreed that this high standard was maintained and the coffee (and beer) breaks were abuzz with animated conversation. Dr Grover’s talk on the effects of lime on the mineralisation of soil organic matter attracted considerable interest and connections were established with two authorities in this area. Ongoing research on peat soils was also strengthened by the first face-to-face meeting between Samantha Grover and Anna Normand, a PhD student from the University of Florida whom Dr Grover co-supervises. The next conference baton was passed on to Jennifer Dungait from Rothamstead Research, which will host the 6^th SOM symposium in 2017. A post-conference workshop on SOM fractionation will result in a comparative trial of fractionation methods from laboratories around the world, with Lynne Macdonald accepting the trial soils to contribute CSIRO’s methodology to the study.

After the conference Samantha visited Dr Cordula Vogel and Professor Karsten Kalbitz at Dresden Technical University and gave a splendid talk to their Soil Science and Site Ecology group. Potential collaborations were discussed, a joint project proposal  drafted and relationships between the two groups were even further strengthened. The valuable contribution from the Plant Nutrition Trust was well acknowledged in all presentations and it helped to attract matching funding from La Trobe University.

Samantha Grover and Brian Wilson with colleagues at a remnant of the fence dividing East and West Germany on the SOM2015 pre-conference field trip.

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Dear members,

CSIRO is hosting a workshop focussed on the genetic programs controlling crop growth and development. This workshop will take place in Kiama, 19–21 April 2016, and will bring together international researchers studying developmental genetics of crop plants to discuss how knowledge of developmental biology can be translated to real world impact. ASPS will offer some support for graduate students to attend. Details are provided in the attached flyer or contact Ben Trevaskis (Ben.Trevaskis@csiro.au) for further information and the ASPS web page http://www.asps.org.au/events/developing-crops-for-the-future

Ben Trevaskis

Your membership is [wpmlfield name=”membershiptype”] which is paid to [wpmlfield name=”paidtodate”] (year, month, day).

Dear members,

CSIRO is hosting a workshop focussed on the genetic programs controlling crop growth and development. This workshop will take place in Kiama, 19–21 April 2016, and will bring together international researchers studying developmental genetics of crop plants to discuss how knowledge of developmental biology can be translated to real world impact. ASPS will offer some support for graduate students to attend. Details are provided in the attached flyer or contact Ben Trevaskis (Ben.Trevaskis@csiro.au) for further information and the ASPS web page http://www.asps.org.au/events/developing-crops-for-the-future

Ben Trevaskis

Dear Colleagues,

Mark Waters hails from the southern regions of the UK. He went to school in Bedford and was fortunate to study Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford. Here he nurtured his curiosity towards understanding plant growth and development after becoming inspired by a first year practical class on photosynthesis. After completing his PhD at the University of Nottingham studying plastid stromules with Kevin Pyke, he returned to the Department of Plant Sciences at Oxford for a post-doc stint with Jane Langdale. There he investigated the transcriptional regulation of chloroplast development, picking up essential skills in genetics and molecular biology. Next Mark moved to Australia in 2010 having been attracted to the impressive reputation of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He joined Steve Smith’s group to explore the nascent field of karrikin signalling in plants.

Named after the local Noongar word for smoke, karrikins are small molecules produced by burning vegetation, and are thus prevalent in the post-bushfire environment characteristic of Australia. The seeds of many plant species germinate upon exposure to plant-derived smoke, and Gavin Flematti at UWA identified karrikins as one of the bioactive compounds in 2004. The karrikin story therefore has a decidedly Australian flavour.

Genetic screens for karrikin-insensitive mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana led to the major discovery that formed the basis for Mark’s 2015 Goldacre Award: the identification and characterisation of the karrikin receptor protein KAI2. This work, published in Development in 2012, provided strong evidence that all plants, not just those adapted to fire-prone environments, possess the key machinery for detecting karrikins.

KAI2 belongs to a family of hydrolase-type proteins that also incudes DWARF14, the receptor for the strigolactone class of plant hormones. Strigolactones influence several developmental processes, most notably shoot branching. Karrikins and strigolactones are chemically similar, as both compounds possess the same “butenolide” structure that is essential for bioactivity. Mark’s research has demonstrated that KAI2 and DWARF14 are structurally similar proteins with quite different physiological functions. As a result, his work has positioned karrikins as abiotic plant growth regulators that are distinct from strigolactones, each having a respective receptor protein with different ligand specificities (Waters et al. 2012, Scaffidi et al. 2013, Scaffidi et al. 2014).

Some of Mark’s more recent work has described the evolutionary conservation of KAI2-dependent signalling in plants. KAI2-type proteins can be traced back to the algal ancestors of land plants, and crucially they are functionally conserved between lycophyte ferns and angiosperms, which diverged over 400 million years ago (Waters et al., 2015). This finding implies that KAI2 is fundamentally important to plant development, a fact borne out by the dramatic seed germination, seedling growth and leaf development phenotypes of KAI2-deficient mutants. In light of the fact that most plants do not encounter karrikins under natural conditions, it is possible that KAI2 has evolved not to perceive smoke, but instead to detect related butenolide compounds that remain to be discovered.

Dr Waters will explore the interface between chemical genetics and molecular biology and hopes to identify new butenolide compounds. He aims to dissect plant hormone interaction networks involved in plant development and perhaps exploit the KAI2 signalling system for crop improvement strategies. Mark and his colleagues have instigated a smoking hot area of research discovery into such an amazing chemical rich in Australian ecological significance.

Contact:

Email: mark.waters”at”uwa.edu.au

URL: http://www.uwa.edu.au/people/mark.waters

Twitter: watersmt

Selected references

1. 1. Waters, MT*, Nelson, DC, Scaffidi, A, Flematti, GR, Sun, YK, Dixon, KW, & Smith, SM (2012). Specialisation within the DWARF14 protein family confers distinct responses to karrikins and strigolactones in Arabidopsis. Development, 139, 1285–1295. http://doi.org/10.1242/dev.074567 (*corresponding author)
2. 2. Scaffidi, A*, Waters, MT*, Ghisalberti, EL, Dixon, KW, Flematti, GR, & Smith, SM (2013). Carlactone-independent seedling morphogenesis in Arabidopsis. The Plant Journal, 76, 1–9. http://doi.org/10.1111/tpj.12265 (*Joint first authors)
3. 3. Scaffidi, A, Waters, MT, Sun, YK, Skelton, BW, Dixon, KW, Ghisalberti, EL, et al. (2014). Strigolactone hormones and their stereoisomers signal through two related receptor proteins to induce different physiological responses in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 165, 1221–1232. http://doi.org/10.1104/pp.114.240036
4. 4. Waters, MT*, Scaffidi, A, Moulin, SLY, Sun, YK, Flematti, GR. & Smith, SM (2015). A Selaginella moellendorffii ortholog of KARRIKIN INSENSITIVE2 functions in Arabidopsis development but cannot mediate responses to karrikins or strigolactones. Plant Cell, 27, 1925–1944. http://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.15.00146

(*corresponding author)

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Global Plant Council E-Bulletin October 2015 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 /  October 2015 Each month the Global Plant Council (GPC) brings you a round-up of the latest news, events, reports and funding opportunities from our members and the wider community. We’re sorry that the October issue is a few days late – last month was incredibly busy for us as we flew out to Brazil for 10 days for our Stress Resilience Forum (in collaboration with the SEB), which was immediately followed by the International Plant Molecular Biology conference, and lastly our Annual General Meeting. We’ll be updating the blog and our website with details of what happened when we’ve recovered from our jetlag, but in the meantime check out the hashtags #StressRes15, #IPMB2015 and #GPCAGM on Twitter! Some of the GPC AGM attendees. Photo courtesy of Deena Errampalli.

Latest News /  View more…If you have news you would like us to share on our website, please contact lisa@globalplantcouncil.org This month 62 new breaking news stories were posted on the GPC website including… Plant discovery could help develop stress-resistant crops A gene that helps plants to remain healthy during times of stress has been identified by UK researchers. Its presence helps plants to tolerate environmental pressures like drought – and it could help create crops that can better withstand adverse conditions. Root microbiome engineering improves plant growth In a recently published review paper in Trends in Microbiology, two integrative biologists present how it is possible to engineer the plant soil microbiome to improve plant growth, even if the plants are genetically identical and cannot evolve. A cure for vitamin B6 deficiency Plant scientists at ETH Zürich and the University of Geneva (Switzerland) have set out to find a way to increase vitamin B6 production in the roots and leaves of the cassava plant. This could prevent vitamin B6 deficiency among people who consume mostly cassava. First global food and agriculture plant genetics data library gets go-ahead Delegates from the 136 member nations of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture have given their approval to set up an international information gateway for the genetic data of food crop seeds. 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 Synergy in Science: Partnering for Solutions 15–18 November 2015. Minneapolis, USA. 1st Latin-American Conference on Plant Phenotyping and Phenomics for Plant Breeding 30 November–2 December 2015. Talca, Chile. 3rd International Plant Physiology Congress 11–14 December 2015, New Delhi, India. International Plant & Animal Genome XXIV 9–13 January 2016, San Diego, USA. Reports / Lots of 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’. Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition  Technical Brief: Improved metrics and data are needed for effective food system policies in the post-2015 era More…G lobal Harvest Initiative Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report: Building Sustainable Breadbaskets More…The Global Food Security (GFS) Programme is inviting expressions of interest from post-doctoral researchers to take part in a Policy Lab on sustainable nutrition. If you are interested in taking an interdisciplinary and systems approach to a policy-relevant issue, who would relish the opportunity to produce an evidence-based report that will be widely read by policy, industry and the public, then this is for you. Funding Opportunities / Spotted a funding opportunity we’ve missed? Please tell us about it by emailing lisa@globalplantcouncil.org There are lots of new funding opportunities available for plant science and policy research from around the world. Please take a look at our articles here (South Africa/India/Asia/Africa/Global) and here (UK/Brazil/Africa/Europe/Global) to see if you are eligible. Hurry, some of the deadlines are very soon. Applications are also now open (until 30 November 2015) for the 2016 New Phytologist Tansley Medal, awarded each year to an outstanding early-career plant science researcher. More information here. 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 International Year of Soils Former President of the Soil Science Society of America David Lindbo tells us why we should care about soils.  More…Women in Plant Science Part 1 and Part 2 13 October was Ada Lovelace Day, named after the first computer programmer to celebrate women working in scientific disciplines. In Part 1, find out what it’s like to be a female plant scientist in Cameroon and Sweden, while in Part 2 we talk to women from Tanzania and the US. Biofortification New Media Fellow Amelia Frizell-Armitage spoke to Professor Cathie Martin about biofortification and her work to improve the nutritional content of tomatoes. More… Taking Care of Wildlings Hannes Dempewolf from the Global Crop Diversity Trust explains why it’s so important to conserve the wild relatives of our modern-day crops. 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 © 2015 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