This article was written for the Global Plant Council (GPC) and originally entitled “A Postcard From… The Australian Society of Plant Scientists”. It first appeared on the GPC blog. You can follow GPC activities on twitter @GlobalPlantGPC”.

The Australian Society of Plant Scientists (ASPS) promotes plant science in Australia, and provides professional contact within our community of teachers and researchers in plant biology. Originally fo­unded in 1958, the ASPS currently has approximately 400 members from Australia and also overseas. It provides a forum for knowledge exchange so that the membership can build on both the depth and breadth of knowledge of plant functions. ASPS offers a unifying representation of plant scientists in Australia, and is linked with the Global Plant Council and many other important international plant science organizations.

One of the main activities of the ASPS is to provide mutual support and collective mentorship to facilitate the dissemination of new research. For example, there has been a long and mutually supportive interaction between ASPS and Functional Plant Biology, which is perhaps the most prestigious journal of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). ASPS is one of the foundation partner societies of ComBio, the annual international biology conference held in Australia. ASPS also sponsors other specialist workshops upon request.

ComBio meeting 2014. ComBio is the combined annual meeting of ASPS, the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology (ANZSCDB), the New Zealand Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (NZSBMB) and the New Zealand Society of Plant Biologists (NZSPB). This year it takes place in Melbourne, 27th September – 1st October: http://www.asbmb.org.au/combio2015/

The Society aims to nurture a new generation of plant scientists in many ways. It sponsors student attendance to ComBio through travel awards, and encourages active student participation by awarding poster prizes. Additionally, the RN Robertson Travelling Fellowship is available to students and early career researchers to support their research in another laboratory so as to widen their experience and raise their profile.

ASPS rewards excellence at all levels of scientific career development. Eminent plant scientists are invited to give the JG Wood or RN Robertson lectures at ComBio, in honour of the first two Presidents of the Society. Outstanding young plant scientists are recognized every year by the Peter Goldacre Award and the ASPS–FPB Best Paper Award. The commitment of ASPS to plant science education is reflected by both the ASPS Teaching Award, which recognizes innovative contributions to undergraduate teaching, and the development of online resources for plant biology teaching such as Plants in Action.

The Society’s social media platforms work with members to enhance their ability to do research and to educate others in plant sciences. The ASPS website offers the opportunity to connect with other members, get updates on the latest plant science research around the world, post jobs, student scholarship opportunities and conference announcements, and provides a growing collection of teaching resources for plants sciences. Phytogen is the Society’s newsletter blog to inform our own members and general readers with an interest in developments in Australian plant science, provide a vehicle for communicating new ideas, recent professional experiences, and forthcoming events. Finally, we use our Facebook and Twitter (@asps_ozplants) accounts to interact and engage with both scientific and general audiences. Meet us and view our photos in our ASPS Facebook page!

This pioneering ‘Postcard From’ was prepared by Gonzalo Estavillo and John Evans.

By Lisa Martin, GPC.

Did you know that as a member of the Australian Society of Plant Scientists, you’re also a member of the Global Plant Council?

What is the Global Plant Council?

The Global Plant Council (GPC) is a non-profit coalition of plant, crop, agricultural and environmental science societies from across the globe. It was founded in 2009 to provide a body that can speak with a single, strong voice in the policy and decision-making arena, at the global level. By connecting plant science organizations, we are bringing together all those involved in plant and crop research, education and training, to harness the wealth of knowledge and expertise found within our membership base to strengthen and facilitate the development of plant science for global challenges.

What does the GPC do?

The GPC currently has 29 Member Organizations – of which the Australian Society of Plant Scientists is one – representing over 55,000 plant and crop scientists across Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia. By bringing these groups together, we promote collaboration and cross-communication between scientists and societies, with a focus on key projects in priority areas. Some examples include:

• Diversity Seek (DivSeek): The GPC is working with partner organizations to bring together germplasm curators, plant and crop researchers, breeders and computational experts to unlock the potential of crop diversity stored in genebanks around the world. For more information, see divseek.org.
• Plantae.org: Together with the American Society for Plant Biologists, the GPC is helping to develop Plantae.org, a forthcoming digital networking platform that will provide researchers, students, industry professionals and educators with access to plant science news, research, methods, teaching resources, funding opportunities and more from across the globe.
• Stress Resilience: Together with the Society for Experimental Biology, the GPC is hosting a Symposium on Plant Stress Resilience in Brazil in October 2015. This meeting will bring together experts in this field to showcase new approaches and technologies, share research knowledge and expertise, and facilitate cross-cultural networking and collaborations. Registration and abstract submission are open, so please consider joining us!
• Education and training: The GPC is working with volunteers and organizations to identify and share tools and resources to train and inspire the next generation of plant scientists, as well as translate these materials into many languages to expand their global reach.

As well as these activities, the GPC coordinates and manages a website, blog, and a monthly e-newsletter to help its members stay connected and up to date with global plant science research. You can also follow us on Twitter at @GlobalPlantGPC (or in Spanish at @GPC_EnEspanol), or on Facebook.

How can the GPC help me?

The GPC is directed by an Executive Board of leading figures from the world of plant and crop science research, and we also have a panel of elected representatives from each of our Member Organizations. We encourage you to communicate with the leaders of your local plant science organizations so that they can feed back to us the issues, needs and opportunities faced by plant scientists in your region.

As well as our Executive Board, which meets on a quarterly basis, the GPC has a small staff that manages the day-to-day running of the Council. Ruth Bastow is our Executive Director, and Lisa Martin is the Outreach & Communications Manager – if you have any upcoming events, funding opportunities, or exciting news to share we will be pleased to help promote these via our website, newsletter and other outreach channels. In addition, you might like to contribute an article to our blog to raise awareness of an issue, important research, an event or project in your area.

The new online plant science community platform mentioned above is still in development and will be a fantastic resource when it is finished – stay tuned! The GPC website is also a useful source of information – we have a comprehensive Events calendar to help you find meetings, conferences, workshops and symposia to attend, and our Resources area provides a range of useful documents, reports, awards, funding opportunities and other information for plant scientists. You could also sign up for our monthly e-Bulletin newsletter.

How can I help the GPC?

There are many ways you can help! Firstly, why not consider making a donation to the GPC? The GPC is not-for-profit and although our Member Organizations pay an annual membership fee, our costs are not entirely covered by this income. We therefore seek donations – however big or small – from individuals, philanthropists, funding bodies or other organizations to help us continue the important work we do.

As a global organization we know that not everyone around the world speaks or understands English, yet the majority of resources for the plant sciences are written in English. If you speak another language and would be willing to help us translate resources such as teaching tools, videos, protocols and other documents into your mother tongue, we would love to hear from you!

Another way you might like to get involved with the GPC is to help raise awareness of the work we do. If you have been invited to speak at a local, national or regional plant science event in the coming months, and would like to say a few words about the GPC, we have some PowerPoint slides and resources to help you spread the word.

We are also conducting a survey of research projects around the world that are associated with stress resilience in plants, and separately, we are also collecting information about maize research around the world. If you work in either of these areas, please tell us about your work!

For more information please contact Lisa Martin
Outreach & Communications Manager , Global Plant Council
Bow House, 1a Bow Lane, London, EC4M 9EE, UK
lisa@globalplantcouncil.org
www.globalplantcouncil.org
@GlobalPlantGPC
+44 (0) 7716 164682

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

GPC/SEB Plant Section Symposium on Stress Resilience, 23–25th October 2015, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil

Dear ASPS member,

I just read an interesting item in the Research School of Biology (ANU) newsletter included below about a paper which received sexist reviews. The authors were disappointed in the lack of response to their protest, so they tweeted parts of the review which certainly raised its profile and engagement of the journal.

Professor John Evans
President of ASPS

Sexist peer review causes storm online.
Megan Head has been in the news after she and her colleague Fiona Ingleby received an inappropriate, sexist review of a manuscript they submitted to PLoSONE. (For the record, their study surveyed male-female differences in success at obtaining post-doctoral funding/fellowships.) After an unsatisfactory review process, and having lodged an appeal and giving the journal a reasonable chance to attend to the matter, Drs Head and Ingleby posted portions of the review on Twitter. There was an eruption of online responses and articles in major print media, including the Times Higher Education, Washington Post, and Science. Megan’s experience is a timely reminder of the need to be proactive in countering sexism in science.

I would like to congratulate Professor Christine Beveridge on being elected to the Australian Academy of Sciences this week. Her research has overturned the dogma on apical dominance and introduced both sugar and strigalactones into the picture through her innovative experimental approaches and determination. Challenging long held beliefs is not easy, but elegant experimental results eventually could not be ignored. Not often does one see the text book representation getting this sort of update.
Professor John Evans,
President, Australian Society of Plant Scientists.

2014 Plant Nutrition Trust Travel Scholarship Report Michael Heaven

Dr Michael Heaven Agriculture Research Division Agriculture Group Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI) Victoria, Australia

Recipient of Plant Nutrition Trust Travel Scholarship to attend World Congress of Soil Science 2014, Jeju, South Korea

The World Congress of Soil Science is like the Olympics of soil. It happens once every four years, in different countries around the world, and the location voted on by members of the soil societies based in various countries. Bribery was evident from the candidates of the next congress – being chocolates, bookmarks and from the winner of the next Congress, little balloon creatures! Thanks in large part to the Plant Nutrition Trust, in June 2014 I was afforded the opportunity to attend the World Congress in balmy Jeju Island, South Korea. Jeju Island, a dormant volcano off the south coast of the Korean peninsula, was certainly an excellent choice for a conference exploring and explaining about all things growing on top of and under the ground, as well as the ground itself. The volcanic rocks presented themselves in various fashion, from the black sand of the beaches to the spiky, stone like formations of Jusangjeolli, the lava remnant of Sanbang-ro sticking abruptly out of otherwise flat ground, and finally the towering, almost 2 km high volcano, Mt. Halla, that disappeared into low cloud that permeates Korea in June.

About 2000 scientists from around the world swamped the International Convention Centre (ICC) Jeju to discuss and present the latest results of their research. The morning sessions were for keynote speakers, who presented weighty issues of global significance, with session titles such as Soil for Peace, Soil Security, Soil-Plant Welfares for Human, and Global Soils: Future Nexus. I was struck by how these keynote speakers could connect the big picture with the paddocks and pastures we use for research. For instance, Prof. Rattan Lal of Ohio State University showed how historically and today civilisations live and die depending on how they treat their soil, be it for things such as crops, forests or carbon sequestration. He presented a bold claim that all wars are connected to soil degradation. Closer to our conference destination, I was surprised to find from speaker Dr. Ho-Seung Yang that World Vision, whose first programme began with helping Korean orphans after the Korean War, were sponsoring programmes of joint research and collaboration between North and South Korean scientists using agriculture as a means to bridge the distrust between the two warring states. It was heart-warming to know that research to improve pasture and crop quality, research we all do, was being used to break down barriers between two disparate ideologies, and hopefully feed people who often don’t have enough to eat. However, more dire predictions were made by the keynote speakers of the Soil Security and Soil-Plant Welfares for Human sessions, who warned of the challenges of the human created “Anthropocene” (8000BC to present). The take home message was that agricultural scientists had a great responsibility to feed a growing world that is likely to have an increased variability in climate, using soils that are being increasingly degraded. As Prof. Donald Sparks of the University of Delaware pointed out, there is a knowledge gap between the research we do and how it is applied in the field, and interdisciplinary groups are a key to resolve the problems of increasing the productivity of the soil without degrading the environment.

These keynote speakers led the way for a plethora of talks and presentations on soil science. My own research, using metabolomics to understand biogeochemical processes in soil and leachate, appeared to be a relative newcomer to soil science – nothing like being on the cutting edge! Our research at DEPI, which detailed how organic phosphorus compounds found in soil water extracts from a dairy farm were related to pasture type (ryegrass or a ryegrass/clover mix), cultivation or annual phosphorus application, was presented to a wide variety of people. I discussed with various scientists from Australia, Germany, USA and elsewhere, how metabolomics could be combined with traditional agricultural analyses to help understand why certain agricultural practices are affecting nutrient concentrations in soil. In particular, I was questioned how we can make sense of the massive amounts of data collected when using metabolomic techniques. As with most agricultural scientists, statistics, in particular, multivariate statistics, provided a guide and a visually arresting description of what was occurring in soil. The ICC is a huge convention centre, and with 2000 delegates it was impossible to see everything. And there were many interesting things to hear about. German scientists from the University of Gottingen discussed the progradation of land, where I was surprised to find that Australia has the second largest area of abandoned agricultural land after Russia. While progradation is leading to increases in soil carbon, it is projected that it would take 170 years to return Russian soils to their pre-agricultural state. Korean scientists from Kangwon National University discussed how they combined remote sensing technology with reports from Mongolian sheep and goat herders to get a better understanding of the processes linking climate, livestock rates and vegetation. Closer to my own research, Taiwanese scientists from National Chung Hsing University discussed how they determined interactions between phosphorous and iron in soil, and ways that this new knowledge may be used to increase nutrients available to plants. It was also good to see a fellow DEPI scientist, Dr Abdur Rab, show how using standard X-ray computed tomography technology can provide insight into soil macroporosity in Australian farms. The overall message I took from the conference presentations was that Australian research into agriculture is as advanced as anywhere in the world, and that combining our skills with others from other scientific disciplines will provide insights that we couldn’t find on our own. The World Congress was an excellent chance to see the latest in agricultural research from around the globe. It was good to meet up with fellow scientists, see new ways of doing research, and to take home ideas for future projects to help the farmers of Victoria. I thank both the Plant Nutrition Trust and DEPI for giving me the opportunity to see how fellow scientists are tackling the same questions we have in Australia, and to present our own leading research.

by Dr. Christopher Ian Cazzonelli

From the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at The University of Western Sydney.

Science Meets Parliament was truly an “awesome event and eye-opening experience”. On the 24^th to 25^th of March, over 200 scientists representing the “science” of life from plant biologists to chemists, physicists and mathematicians all converged in Australia’s capital city of Canberra for two days to learn about how politics, policymaking and the media work. The event provided a unique opportunity to examine science from different perspectives through facilitating a greater understanding between scientists and parliamentarians, stimulating discussions in parliament of scientific issues that underpin Australia’s economic, social and environmental wellbeing, and even more so solidifying deeper understanding of science through the wider community to further the interests of the nation.

I was fortunate to represent The Australian Society of Plant Scientists while attending this annual event, which was on my “bucket list” of things to do as a scientist. Why? I am passionate about improving my skills in the art of effective communication. It seems imperative that scientists have a prominent voice in parliament that flows with excitement to support long term Australian research and provide effective ideas to engage our fellow politicians and policymakers in a language they can understand. I hoped that by immersing myself in parliament I could develop a more realistic perception of politics and perhaps harness some skills to share with readers of the ASPS as well as my colleagues at the rapidly growing Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at The University Western Sydney.

The overarching theme of the two-day program was to prepare each conference attendee for an interview with a politician in parliament house. No stress, easy done, I think not! How would you handle meeting Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Honorable Minister for Industry and Science Ian Macfarlane, or perhaps the amusing likes of Member for Kennedy Bob Katter or even Greens Senator for Victoria Janet Rice? If you wanted to give a positive and effective impression, my guess is that such a task might be more difficult than one anticipates. What seemed stressful at first was made easier after two days of preparation. Surprisingly, fellow conference attendees who were lucky to meet the aforementioned politicians all came back from their interviews with pleasant experiences and a new appreciation that politicians were normal people with the best intentions of our country at heart. Now that was unexpected and Science Meets Parliament is about preparing for the unexpected so that a scientist’s voice is heard, understood and effective in promoting change.

So here is how they managed to get us ready over two days of stimulating panels, discussions, talks and engaging interview simulations.

The first day started with a session on how to meet the media, where we learnt more about a day in the life of a reporter. Now their day might be as boring as that of a scientist, except when the “perfect storm” arises with data that grabs the average reader’s attention. What made the NCRIS funding story recently so hot in comparison to that of an endangered ecosystem is that jobs were at stake, the significant level of funding to be cut and an essential interview with Nobel laureate Professor Brian Schmidt, which pieces all the ingredients together to provide the golden story. So how do we get the media’s attention with a “good story”? You need conflict, human angles, policy issues, party angles, economic wellbeing, general interest and good reading. The ultimate judge is the consumers, and they will ask “what is in it for me” or “why should I care”? What is the headline? Can I explain this to my mum? Is it broad reaching? What sources of media should one use to promote the story? These are questions to ask as a scientist when trying to sell the media a meaty story.

Next we were exposed to the art of a successful political meeting by a panel of experts. Essentially the “rule books have been thrown out” and reform is hard to achieve. We were encouraged to become proactive as scientists and approach our local members with solutions. We should highlight a political cost if the local members do not respond to science-based evidence that can shape a political arena. It is always good to engage the local member with a personal interest and help them identify the stakeholders. A good meeting with a politician should have three clear points, one action, and most of all is convincing as well as emotional. Invite them to your work; take them on a journey that aligns your agenda with their parties’ future by identifying vote winning “hot buttons” to push. The focus of any meeting should have an outcome and the message can be challenging to convey in 5 minutes or less if they have a busy schedule.

The messy nature of policymaking presented by Mr Martin Hoffman (Deputy Secretary of the Department of Industry and Science) was our next lesson of day 1. Too often policymaking was “seen as ad hoc, left to chance and individual skills” and acted upon by events of crisis or when internal reform is necessary. It was said that “policy is separate to politics” and that “good policy is good politics”. Politics is a view of values whereby policy is responsive to politics, but needs to be an enduring agent. Scientists need to realize that science-based evidence can facilitate better politics. The take outs of this session were: 1) beware of being a philosopher king as values and choices in society are the key, 2) policy is about tradeoffs and how do we know when we have spent too much on science, 3) timing is important and when “the window is open” the policy is ripe to change, 4) beware of the misuse of science as science-based policy is best and we should avoid policy-based science and 5) policy is about dealing with constraints which are truly binding.

Professor Graham Durant (Director of Questacon) told us about who is inspiring Australia. Apparently, we as scientists are inspiring Australians and need to push positive communications throughout the community. It was pointed out that scientists serve society and we shouldn’t take public support for granted. The good news is that 40% of Australians were aware of National Science Week in 2013. We need work exchanges to bring science into the media to exchange ideas, perhaps through a science media resident program. We should be promoting a creative and entrepreneurial culture that is more cohesive to draw scientists together and we need to learn how to communicate stories more effectively. This is not just the job of Science and Technology Australia, it is our responsibility too.

Professor Brian Schmidt and Prof. Hugh White taught us how to talk and think like a policymaker. It became apparent that policymakers are not after the truth; they just want to make decisions. As John F Kennedy said “To govern is to choose”. So it is better if, as scientists, we give policymakers knowledge and assist them in making decisions. It is far less effective to say “I know something and you need to change your policy”. Professor Schmidt said that we should not “underestimate your ability to influence politicians”. Objectives are usually always dependent upon resources and policymaking is a dynamic process that scientists need to participate in if we are to make a difference. There will be bouncing between facts and decisions and it is important to work with them and talk a language they understand. At this stage I felt that we needed to become advocates of business science as “advocacy is driven by analysis”. Nobody owns a result in policymaking; you throw out ideas and knowledge and have to be open to criticism. Most politicians apparently want a positive outcome and “good policy really does matter”. It was made clear that we shouldn’t talk about opinions, but rather how experts can support policymakers with facts that are balanced with a public view.

We closed the day learning how to get science out of the lab. We were required to undertake a simple, yet not so simple, exercise – to tell our science story in one minute as if we were addressing a politician. After only 5 minutes of such short notice preparation, competitions were hot amongst the conference delegates, first by table, than by corners of the room until delegates had voted their favorite speakers to showcase effective communication skills to the entire delegate conference. I was fortunate by chance that nobody on my table wanted to present and then selected from my corner of serious competitors to join the final four on stage. It was a tough task trying to rapidly condense my molecular interests in plant science into one minute, with little practice and have it reveals enthusiasm, thrive with passion and tell a scientific story about how plants can perceive and acclimate to a “green thumbs touch”. The final four one minute presentations can be viewed on the YouTube Channel “Getting your Science out of the Lab” (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkWrR8YYDTgDuqa5N2hobFd1OUNscW1Zm). The exercise was not about winning or losing, but rather it forced us scientists to explain what we do in simplistic terms that a politician or policymaker can understand. I suspect we all found this challenging, but what we really learnt is just how important effective communication skills are in the process of dealing with politicians, policymakers and most importantly convincing the general public about how important science is to Australia’s future.

The Gala dinner that night at Parliament house was absolutely superb and the speech by Honorable Minister for Industry and Science Ian Macfarlane touched base with plant scientists in his highlights of how important agriculture is to Australian exports. Professor Ian Chubb reinforced these comments at the National Press Club Address the next day. He spoke about the face of climate change and addressed that in order to feed nine billion people in the world by 2050 we need to invest in agriculture. He highlighted the importance of plant science as a means to improve yields and be responsive to the 2050 needs by making sure we have the right crops in the right areas as weather patterns change. He was questioned about the GMO debate and pointed out that experts need to communicate more effectively and facilitate the debate. He expressed that we need to have the three P’s for success; “passion, persistence and patience”. It is easy to scare people with myths or skewed stories, but the GMO debate has not been dealt with well. Professor Chubb saw that GMOs have a place and we need to have debates to inform the public and decide what it may look like in the future when dealing with feeding a hungry world in 2050 and combating climate change. He also pointed out that we need better high school education and to nurture student curiosity in science. We need to broaden the education system beyond science to prepare for the future and pointed out that all university students should be enrolled in at least one core subject of science.

Finally, we heard Ian Chubb release an important report about the impact of physics, chemistry and mathematics on our economy. They directly add $145 billion to the Australian economy each year ($292 billion indirectly, equivalent to 11% of GDP) and 760,000 jobs (7% of all jobs in Australia). Science needs to be seen as an investment and the economic studies are serving as a platform to argue for long term funding to facilitate infrastructure as well as changes in policy. We as Australians are contributors and users of knowledge. As an example, he highlighted that the rates of return ($700-900 million) in agriculture are the highest of any government investment in science. To meet trade agreements we need to predict weather patterns, rainfall and look for crops and nutritional high yielding plants that are better suited to areas impacted by climate change. The overall view to support the present with an eye to the future is looking extremely bright for plant scientists. Let’s hope the government invests in a greener future focused on agriculture with a long term investment strategy.

Thanks to Lorna Sim for supplying the photos which have been made available for publication as outlined by Gia Metherell (Events & Media Officer) from Science & Technology Australia.

Follow @HIEatUWS and @eelaboratory

Hello ASPS members

I have been remiss in not sending out a Presidential message earlier, so I will take the opportunity of the lunar New Year since I was in the wilds of Tasmania over summer. Firstly I would like to thank our past president Tim Colmer for his contributions to the society. Under his stewardship, the society has maintained a steady membership and joined with the Global Plant Council.  I would also like to acknowledge the work of Martha Ludwig, Brent Kaiser and Janet Wheeler. We rely heavily on their efforts to keep the society website and database functional. Unfortunately, we continue to run into problems associated with membership renewals and I hope that you let us know if there are any mistakes so that we can correct them.

The Australian Society of Plant Scientists needs your support to recruit and retain members if it is to continue to provide our vision for Australian Plant Science which is well captured on the home page. Key tasks of the society are the professional recognition awards (Goldacre, Teaching), support for students to attend ComBio, the Robertson fellowship for Early Career Researchers and our online textbook Plants in Action.

Nominations for the Goldacre and Teaching awards are needed (closing 6 April, 2015).

The Robertson fund has been built from member donations and we are seeking applications for this year’s fellowship award (closing 13 April, 2015).

I hope this year will be productive for research and your teaching/education is rewarding.

John Evans

A practical course on Insights into plant biological processes through phenotyping

13 – 19 September 2015 | Ghent, Belgium

See the link for details

http://events.embo.org/15-plant-phenotyping/

3rd Call for Short-Term Scientific Missions (STSM)

Application deadline 16.03.2015

The quest for tolerant varieties – Phenotyping at plant and cellular level

See below for more details.

3rd Call for STSM_2015_02_04 incl guidance notes