By Sebastian Pfautsch

ASPS Representative ‘Environment and Ecophysiology: Global Change’

Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University

Every year plants respire about 64 Gt CO₂ back into the atmosphere. That is six times as much as released from burning fossil fuels. Obviously, small proportional changes in the respiratory flux can result in dramatic changes in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations and associated warming effects.

Plant respiration (R) is positively correlated to temperature (T). Plant scientists have believed that R will accelerate under global warming, generating a feed-forward loop where plant-respired CO₂ leads to even faster rates of warming, that lead to even greater fluxes of R and so on. Clearly, this scenario, where plants are responsible for faster rates of global warming is a scary one. Should plants be put into the limelight of being irresponsible climate sinners? Have plants worked out an evil plan to overthrow Homo sapiens? Are we all working for the enemy?

Rest assured, the short answer is no. The slightly longer answer, according to plant ecologist Peter Reich is “that we have no silver bullet to stop global warming, but recent research on the temperature-R relationship provides a silver lining in an otherwise dark sky”.

Recently Peter published new research findings on plant R in Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature17142.html ). He and his team grew 10 North American tree species for five years in the field and measured an insane amount of R-to-T response curves of leaves. Trees were grown under ambient and warmed (+3.4 °C) conditions with and without canopy cover of dominant trees. When leaves of ambient trees were exposed to +3.4 °C warming for a short time, their rate of R increased by 23% compared to unwarmed leaves.

However, when R was measured in leaves that were constantly warmed, they respired 80% less than those plants that experienced only short-term warming. This indication of long-term acclimation of R to higher T has large implications for global simulation models that – until now – have falsely assumed that R increases exponentially when T is rising. Consequently, these models have grossly overestimated atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ and associated rates of global warming.

Independent of the research in North America, two other studies have emerged that point in the same direction. A global team, spearheaded by colleagues from ANU (Heskel et al., 2016, published in PNAS) found that R did not increase exponentially as T rose along an environmental gradient reaching from the artic to equatorial biomes and covering 231 plant species. Most importantly, the shape of the response curve of R-to-T was similar for all species, pointing to a universally applicable sensitivity of leaf metabolism to T. Earth system modellers must have a field day as these results make life so much easier…

The second study I’d like to point out is the work by John Drake and colleagues, accepted for publication in New Phytologist. This work brings R-to-T responses home to Eucalyptus trees. 12 Forest Redgum trees were grown in 10 m tall whole-tree chambers in Richmond, of which half tracked ambient temperatures, the other half ambient +3 °C warming. Instrumentation of the chambers allowed John to track gas exchange of the trees on a day-to-day basis at high temporal resolution.

Results from these Redgums agreed with Peter’s work on North American trees. R did not increase with warming. Furthermore, the Redgums responded to warming by decreased photosynthetic carbon assimilation. This means that – although indirectly – warming may increase atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, but not due to increased R rather than decreased assimilation of C. In the experiment this led ultimately to a small increase in the ratio of R-to-photosynthesis, but only during heatwaves.

John says “these gum trees happily adjusted their physiology to cope with warming during most conditions, but heat waves were different. The gums shut their stomata and waited out the heat, but in the process they lost a lot of C to respiration without gaining any via photosynthesis”. In a global warming perspective this means that higher atmospheric CO₂ concentrations could be the result of decreased uptake of CO₂ by trees during the more frequent and intense heat waves predicted for our future in Australia.

The capacity of plants to acclimate to higher temperatures without exponentially increasing R is great news for the modelling of the earth system. As Peter puts it, acclimation of R to temperature only represents “a delay in the race to the climate change cliff”. However, we must consider that ecosystem R is much more than leaf R. At least John’s paper reports R of the woody proportion of trees (R is slightly increasing with warming). Leaf R represents roughly 50% plant R, with fine roots being responsible for the majority of the other half. We know little about acclimation of R in fine roots.

We know even less of acclimation of R in soil microbial biomass. And on a ecosystem scale consider that: while under hot and dry conditions plants would close stomata, leading to reduced uptake of CO₂ while R remains relatively constant, soil microbial activity would slow down, autotrophic R would decrease and soils would retain more C. How does that affect atmospheric concentrations of CO₂?

It gets complicated really quickly if we leave experimental units and enter the real world where plants have to deal with competition for resources (e.g. light, water, nutrients), grow fast or slow, tolerate shade more or less, age, etc. And on top of all that, even one of the world’s most distinguished plant ecologist admits that we don’t even know how acclimation exactly modifies enzymatic and biochemical processes. Nevertheless, pushing the boundaries of our understanding of R-to-T responses remains important work.

The seminal work of Owen Atkin and Mark Tjoelker 13 years ago (published in TiPS) defined the current framework of leaf acclimation. The three most recent studies about R-to-T responses and their implications to the earth system are tribute to an ever-progressing understanding of the effects of global warming on the natural world.

And besides all the great results, the work by Reich, Heskel and Drake and their colleagues is proof of the importance of well-funded, long-term and field-based research programs – a type of plant science that is pushed towards extinction. So, are plants winning after all? Take a deep breath and … respire.

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We have several new events including;

• The Fourth International Conference on Plant Vascular Biology
• 37th New Phytologist Symposium: Plant developmental evolution
• 38th New Phytologist Symposium: Colonization of the terrestrial environment 2016

New employment opportunities include;

• Postdoctoral researcher position on nanobiotechnology in Riversdale, U.S.A.
• Postgraduate Student Internship Awards in Adelaide and Canberra
• IMPRS-MPI Doctoral Fellowships in Berlin/Potsdam, Germany

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 /  January* 2016 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.

Latest News /  View more…If you have news you would like us to share on our website, please contact lisa@globalplantcouncil.org  This month 61 new breaking news stories were posted on the GPC website including… In Nature Plants: Scientists discover how arsenic builds up in plant seeds Researchers from the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at the Florida International University (USA) are part of an international team that has identified how arsenic builds up in the seeds of plants similar to rice. The discovery holds the promise of the future development of healthier rice grains. International lentil genome sequencing effort underway Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan Canada have released a draft lentil genome assembly that will help develop new understanding and commercial applications of this ancient crop.­­ Serendipitous orchid: An unexpected discovery A new elegant orchid species that grows on rocks in deciduous forests of the Pacific slope of Oaxaca state, Mexico, has finally put an end to a long standing dispute among taxonomists. Call for nominations: ASA, CSSA & SSSA awards  The American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America invite nominations for their 2016 awards and scholarships. 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 Research Data Alliance 7th Plenary Meeting 01–03 February 2016. Toyko, Japan. Science Forum 2016 – Agricultural research for rural prosperity: Rethinking the Pathways 12–14 April 2016. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. UK PlantSci 2016: Plants in a changing world 11–12 April 2016. Norwich, UK. 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 Royal Society International Exchange Scheme to stimulate new collaborations, Newton Mobility Grants for international researchers to undertake short visits to the UK, the Thought for Food Initiative from the Agropolis Foundation and the Young Investigator grants from the Human Frontier Science Programme. More info 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 New Year, New Executive Board Although they have been in post since the end of last year, this post introduces the current elected executive board  of Barry Pogson, Ariel Orellana, Vicky Buchanan-Wollaston, Carl Douglas and Yusuke Saijo More… Creating stress resilient agricultural systems: Video Interviews Back in October the GPC in collaboration with SEB hosted a Stress Resilience Forum in Brazil. During this event GPC New Media Fellows Sarah and Amelia interviewed a number of researchers and compilation of those interviews is available in this post More…Connecting Plant Science Researchers, Entrepreneurs, and Industry Professionals  This blog post provided by Amanda Gregoris and R. Glen Uhrig and who organized a workshop entitled “Lab Bench to Boardroom” at the Botany 2015 meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to engage graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to consider the science behind biotechnology. 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

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.

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

Announcing the call for applications for 2016 ASPS awards including;

2016 Peter Goldacre award, applications close November 30th 2015.

2016 ASPS Teaching Award, applications close November 30th 2015.

2016 RN Robertson Travelling Fellowships, Round I applications close November 30th 2015.

There is also a new employment opportunity at James Cook University click here for details.

and attached is an updated

Book your 2015 phenotyping experiment at The Plant Accelerator now

Do you work with crop plants? Are you interested in getting quantitative measurements of traits such as early vigour, nutrient and water use efficiency or salinity tolerance?

The Plant Accelerator is part of the NCRIS funded Australian Plant Phenomics Facility and offers high-throughput non-destructive phenotyping of crop plants in a greenhouse environment. Using automated imaging and watering systems, we can control the desired growth conditions while measuring their impact on plant performance and growth over time.

If you consider undertaking a phenotyping experiment at The Plant Accelerator in 2015, please contact us now to discuss your phenotyping needs and potential project.

We can provide advice on design and feasibility of your experiment and an itemised quote to help with budgeting or grant applications.

Especially if the time of year is important for your experiment, then contact us soon to ensure we can accommodate your project at the required time.

You can go online and fill out a request for quote:  http://www.plantphenomics.org.au/services/accelerator/ or contact Drs Bettina Berger and Trevor Garnett at: bettina.berger@adelaide.edu.au; trevor.garnett@adelaide.edu.au;

We look forward to working with you in the future.

The “Website & Communications Sub-Committee (WCSC)” has been established at our last 2014 AGM. The main goal of the WCSC is to disseminate information related to ASPS and plant biology among the Society members and the general public.

The WCSC is in charge of updating the content in the social media platforms representing ASPS and formatting the website. In addition to our www.asps.org.au website, ASPS manages a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ASPSozplants) and a Twitter account (@asps_ozplants). WCSC will also liaise with ASPS members seeking suggestions about the website functionality and content in an attempt to improve exposure, interest and visibility.

The WSCS consists of four ASPS members and one ASPS student representative. The WSCS is chaired by Dr Gonzalo Estavillo. Dr Janet Wheeler provides technical support and coordinates the website maintenance with the developer (Michael Major Media); Conjoint Professor Tina Offler and Dr Chris Cazzonelli help with content design and the editing of “Phytogen”. Christina Delay is the student representative that helps to coordinate and manage social media, interact with other student members, and provide feedback to the other members of the WSCS.

Dr Gonzalo Estavillo

Dr Janet Wheeler

Conjoint Professor Tina Offler

Dr Chris Cazzonelli

Ms Christina Delay

We would like to encourage all members to send their suggestions and ideas about how to improve our ASPS website and help disseminate our activities to

• WSCS chair (gonzalo.estavillo@csiro.au) or
• student representative (christina.delay@anu.edu.au).