NEWS FROM
PHYSIOLOGIA PLANTARUM
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Published monthly on behalf of SPPS by Wiley-Blackwell.
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Climate change causes greenhouse gas emission by plants
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Global warming seems to be self-sustaining by making plants emit the potent greenhouse gas, methane (CH4), while simultaneously reducing their assimilation of CO2. This conclusion was obtained by Mirwais M. Qaderi and David M. Reid from University of Calgary, Canada, who tested methane emission and several growth parameters from six crop species grown under various environmental conditions. An increase in temperature from 24/20 °C (day/night) to 30/26 °C led to a 15% increase in methane emission, while the effect of water stress, which will accompany global warming in many regions, increased emission of the greenhouse gas by 22%. The figures are average measurements from faba bean, sunflower, pea, canola, barley and wheat. Under ambient conditions the six crops emitted between 85 (barley) and 170 (pea) ng methane per g dry weight per hour. At the same time, the higher temperature caused CO2 assimilation to decrease 27%, while water stress reduced CO2 assimilation by 31%. The researchers will now investigate how elevated CO2 levels affect methane emission in order to get a better picture of how global warming can turn plants into greenhouse gas contributors.
Read full article free: Qaderi & Reid (October 2009) Physiologia Plantarum 137: 139-147
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NEWS IN BRIEF
FROM OTHER JOURNALS
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Amber Predates Conifers
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Source: Bray & Anderson (2 October 2009) Science 326: 132-134
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Shedding light on protein-protein interactions
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Source: Yazawa et al (4 October 2009) Nature Biotechnology doi:10.1038/nbt.1569
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Welcome to the 6th SPPS PhD Student Conference
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The next SPPS PhD conference will take place on an island outside Helsinki. From www.phd-spps.com
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The organising committee of the 6th SPPS PhD student conference welcomes all plant biology PhD students to Helsinki to join a high quality scientific programme and enthusiastic atmosphere, meet the top scientists of plant biology, and to tell about your own studies and recent results.
The next SPPS PhD student conference will be held during 2-5 September 2010 in Espoo in the Finnish-Swedish Cultural Centre Hanasaari located in an island just few minutes outside of Helsinki. The programme is structured so that there are named sessions covering more or less all fields of plant biology. In every session there is a keynote speaker, after which students take the arena. The four-day meeting offers a great opportunity to have discussions with the leading plant scientist and to see the variety of methods and aims of PhD projects by the other participants. A panel discussion on "Life after a PhD" and a talk by Vaughan Hurry (editor-in-chief of Physiologia Plantarum) on "About getting published" will also be organized.
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The conference programme is still under preparation and will include nine sessions. From www.phd-spps.com
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In addition to an interesting scientific programme, social events and unofficial discussions among all the participants may take place in every evening. PhD students from all areas in plant biology are encouraged to present either an oral presentation or poster.
The scientific programme and confirmed keynote speakers are: - Applied plant biology - Crop Design - Gent, Belgium
- Bioenergy - Eva-Mari Aro - University of Turku
- Bioinformatics - Ken Birnbaum - New York University
- Biotechnology - Kirsi-Marja Oksman-Caldentey - VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
- Development - Thomas Laux - University of Freiburg
- Ecophysiology - Gareth Jenkins - University of Glasgow
- Environment - Christine Foyer - Newcastle University
- Environmental Stress Response - Maria Israelsson Nordström - Stockholm University
- Signalling - Elena Baena-Gonzalez - Instituto Gulbenkian de Cincia
SPPS members will get discount from the registration fee and the students who have been members of SPPS already in the year 2009 can apply for the SPPS travel grant to attend the conference.
You are warmly welcome to Finland!
You can find more information about the 6th SPPS PhD conference at the official homepage.
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