by Dr. Matthew Tucker

ARC Future Fellow at The University of Adelaide

It’s been a busy start to the year in terms of conferences and workshops relevant to plant research. The bi-annual Plant Reproduction meeting was held from the 18^th to 23^rd of March at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The conference brings together experts from diverse fields stretching all the way from meristem development through to sporogenesis, pollen tube attraction, fertilisation, embryogenesis, endosperm development and fruit growth. The ultimate aim of the conference is to describe fundamental research from model species, such as the discovery of genes, mechanisms and biochemical pathways, which might be used to address current and future challenges in crop reproduction and yield. The conference was well attended with approximately 220 attendees, and the quality of data presented was amazing. Australian attendees included researchers from CSIRO Agriculture, The University of Adelaide and the ACPFG. The highlights were talks from Minako Ueda from the University of Nagoya, who showed stunning videos of fluorescently-tagged Arabidopsis egg cells developing into zygotes, Noni Franklin-Tong from the University of Birmingham, who described her work on transferring the self-incompatibility system from poppy into Arabidopsis, and Li Yuan from UC Davis who won an award for his talk on a histidine kinases that controls central cell development in the Arabidopsis female gametophyte. The discovery of genes controlling or inducing apomixis in maize, Taraxacum and Pennisetum was also a major breakthrough. It was clear from the talks that CRISPR/Cas9 and ChipSeq are now standard techniques in the field, while the capacity to isolate, profile and study previously inaccessible cell types through fluorescence assisted cell sorting (FACS) and microdissection is also rapidly progressing. The next plant Reproduction meeting will be held in Japan in 2018, and I would strongly recommend attending what always proves to be a collaborative, interactive and socially enjoyable meeting.

Photos of the Tucson desert moon, the famed Dr Minako Ueda with the author, the packed conference and Tetsuya Higashiyama introducing the next Plant Reproduction meeting.

Another excellent CSIRO workshop was recently held from the 19^th-21^st April in Kiama on the NSW south coast. The workshop, also sponsored by the ASPS, brought together Australian and International researchers from the field of Crop Developmental Genetics to discuss old and new strategies for the improvement of crop yield. Cereal crops such as wheat, barley and sorghum were discussed in addition to research on lupins, canola, tomato and legumes. Talks from international speakers including Jorge Dubcovsky from UC Davis, Junko Kyozuka from Tohoku University, Thorsten Schnurrbusch from IPK Gatersleben and Yuval Eshed from the Weizmann Institute were highlights, while students from CSIRO, ANU, the Universities of Adelaide, Queensland and Monash confirmed that the future of plant developmental genetics in Australia is in good hands. The intention was to use this workshop as a springboard for further collaborative research and meetings; plant developmental genetics is a relatively small field that provides so much promise for translating fundamental discoveries directly into breeding outcomes. As part of this I plan to update the ASPS Plant Development page to include information about the field and the research being undertaken in Australia, hopefully this will act as a useful resource for both students and researchers.

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

• ASPS will make up to 5 awards for research presented as a poster by students at ComBio2016, depending on the number of posters. Each award will consist of recognition at the end of the conference and a prize of $200.
• Student members of ASPS may also apply in advance for a travel award to attend ComBio2016, if presenting their research as either a poster or talk. Applications are due June 10^th to the Hon. Treasurer of ASPS: brent.kaiser@sydney.edu.au
• The Peter Goldacre Award is the ASPS award for excellence in early career research. The award ($2000, a medal and invited lecture at ComBio) is sponsored by Functional Plant Biology.
• Award for best paper (2016) by an early career plant scientist published in Functional Plant Biology (certificate, $250 book voucher from CSIRO publishing). Selected from papers published in 2015 in Functional Plant Biology and nominated during the submission process.
• The ASPS Teaching Award may also be presented (certificate and prize) at ComBio2016.
• The R.N. Robertson Lecture will take place at ComBio2016. (The R.N. Robertson Lecture alternates each year with the J.G. Wood Memorial Lecture).
• For more information, http://www.asps.org.au/awards

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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