students Archives - The Global Plant Council

Jun 26

Broadcasting Plant Science Live to the World

By Isabel | Blog, Plantae, Public Engagement, SEB

Dr Ian Street

This week’s post was written by Dr Ian Street (@IHStreet), the Resources Editor at AoB Blog. He is also a science writer and plant scientist. His science blog is The Quiet Branches.

On 18th May 2017, plant scientists from all over the world celebrated “International Fascination of Plants Day”. This year, plant enthusiasts could follow events around the world – thanks to social media and live-streaming. Scientists shared live broadcasts about the science they do, the facilities where they work, models from history, about engaging students with plants, and more. Botany Live, organized by the AoB Blog, was an experiment in science engagement supported by the Society for Experimental Biology, The Annals of Botany Company, and Plantae. Overall, thousands tuned in to 31 planned events registered with Botany Live.

Using Periscope and Facebook Live, some reported from dedicated events planned around Plant Day. Others talked directly to the camera and their virtual audience about plants, plant science, and communicating plant science.

The Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center (ABRC) at Ohio State University showed off the facilities and robots they use to maintain both gene stocks and seed stocks. These facilities and resources, which provide essential support for plant research, are often only known within the plant science community. Even there, how they operate on a day-to-day basis remains a mystery to many. Botany Live allowed us to take a peek at the support structures that make international plant science possible. The ABRC videos also showed how plant science is using cutting edge technology with robots to automate seed sorting and gene stocks.

Frame from the Hounsfield Facility Botany Live Broadcast, showing the glass house and the robot that carries individual plants to be scanned.

A tour of the Hounsfield X-ray Facility (@UoNHounsfield) demonstrated the high-tech nature of modern plant science too. The staging the Hounsfield video was clever, as the scientists there clearly set up marks they had to hit to be on camera at certain times demonstrating the three sizes of scanner at the facility. Their live-stream ended with Malcolm Bennett in the glass house talking about the importance of exploring root traits, a big part of what they track at Hounsfield with robots and 3D X-ray tomography.

The National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) wheat transformation facility broadcast brought us cutting-edge biology directly from the field. Alison Bentley (@AlisonRBentley) guiding us around the facility, where scientists develop and field test new varieties of wheat, followed by a look around their glasshouses. Geraint Parry (@GARNetweets) then interviewed several NIAB conference attendees. A specialized facility for wheat transformation (making transgenic wheat) is, like the ABRC and Hounsfield, a resource of a special capacity to do something technical that not all individual labs can develop.

An infected plant in background and flower in the foreground from Monica Lewandowski’s Botany Live Broadcast.

Another outdoor tour of a garden in California was given by Monica Lewandowski. She highlighted the diversity of plants grown in the state’s central valley. She also spoke about some of the challenges that plants face, and why we need plant scientists to study them. It showed the simplicity possible with Periscope broadcasts, as her session focused on just her with planned talking points, a walking path, and her voice-over.

Alun Salt of the AoB Blog brought us some short broadcasts from Kew Gardens. He gave a brief tour of the Wollemi pine, an ancient lineage known only from fossils until 1994. He also gave a quick overview of the garden’s carnivorous plants, including the coolest plant in the world, Darlingtonia californica.

Darlingtonia californica at Kew Gardens from Alun Salt’s Botany Live Broadcast.

Several Botany Live recordings involved school students. Alistair Culham and Dr M (@drmgoeswild) broadcast a video with students about what they’d done earlier, counting plants and observing them. Many of the students were surprised to learn where pineapples come from: not from a tree, but a bush yielding a single pineapple a year. The Gramene Database (@GrameneDatabase) broadcast a talk with students about plants’ superpowers such as resurrection plants, which can lose 95% of their water and seemingly come back to life upon rehydration. Maria Papanatsiou (@m_papanatsiou) from the University of Glasgow broadcast Plant Day activities engaging students, and many of the videos can be found on the social wall of tweets made for Botany Live.

The most popular Plant Day broadcast was from the Manchester Museum, featuring botany curators Rachel Webster (Manchester) and Donna Young (Liverpool) talking about Brendel’s Plant Models collections from Manchester and the Liverpool World Museum. They’re remarkable models of plants, made of paper mache amongst other materials, created in 1880-1920 by a father/son team in Germany. They were designed to teach plant anatomy and many are incredibly intricate, with some even being able to be taken apart to show specific parts of a flower.

Brendel Plant Model Nr. 10, Pisum Sativum: Accreditation: By David Ludwig (own work at Botanical Museum in Greifswald) Image credit: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Botany Live broadcasts came from all over the world, and the event can grow in the years to come. The format of live streaming is flexible, with elaborate or simple setups possible. Most broadcasts were under ten minutes, but some lasted almost an hour, and of course, they can be done nearly anytime and anywhere with a good data connection.

This first year of Botany Live was an experiment. With thousands of people reached (and likely more, as many of the videos are still available), it was a success and a boost to the Plant Day events already taking place, extending their reach online. Given the success the Manchester Museum had with their broadcast, more institutions being directly involved will help promote the live broadcasts and engage even more people in the fascinating world of plants.

Further reading:

GARNet newsletter also covered Botany Live in its May 2017 issue (pdf)

Jun 05

The State of the World’s Plants 2017 by Bursary Winner Harison Andriambelo

By Isabel | Blog, GPC Community, Scientific Meetings, SEB

This week’s post was written by Harison Andriambelo, a PhD student at the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar. Harison was the awardee of the Early Career Researcher travel bursary from the Society for Experimental Biology in association with the Global Plant Council, enabling him to attend the State of the World’s Plants Symposium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Here’s how he got on!

Attending the State of the World’s Plants Symposium 2017 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, was a fantastic opportunity for me to get a detailed insight into many aspects of plant conservation, including the latest emerging research. Scientists from all over the world attended the symposium and shared results from several ecoregions, including tropical, boreal, and temperate biomes. It was also great to visit the Gardens, which were looking amazing in the British summertime.

As a botanist from Madagascar, I found the focus session on conservation in my country particularly useful, and I really enjoyed the talks by Pete Lowry and George Schatz, both from Missouri Botanic Garden.

Other sessions in the conference highlighted important issues including fires and invasive species. We heard that fire is not always bad for plants, especially in savannah systems, where plant diversity is maintained by the fire regime. I believe better scientific communication to the public is urgently needed on this issue.

Another great session concerned invasive species. I have worked across all the biomes in Madagascar, from humid forests to the dry spiny forest, and I have seen first-hand the effects invasive plants can have. A detailed assessment of invasive plant species in wetlands and in the western dry forests of Madagascar made me more aware of the potential impacts of these species. By attending this symposium, I learned about several programs and efforts by the Invasive Species Specialist Group and will spread information about invasive species management to colleagues once I return to Madagascar.

For me, the highlight of the session on medicinal plants was a talk by the President of Mauritius. It was inspirational to see that scientists can even become a head of state. Such leadership offers great promise for addressing environmental issues at national scale. I am certain that having an ecologist as President in Madagascar would allow much greater progress on conservation issues in my home country, which has many highly threatened endemic species. Scientists can bring their understanding and ability to analyze complex systems to bear on policy. Good leaders can take a long-term holistic view and accord the appropriate priority to the environment in national plans for development.

This symposium allowed me to present some results of my research activities in Madagascar and get feedback from an international group of scientists. A deep discussion with people working at RBG Kew about how to scale information on tree dispersal processes from the plot to landscape scales was very valuable. As they know the Madagascan context, they were very interested in my results and a possible collaboration is on its way.

Finally, this trip to London allowed me to spend more time with my colleague Dr Peter Long at the University of Oxford and to make good progress for my scientific research activities. I am very grateful to the Society for Experimental Biology for supporting my travel to the UK to participate in this meeting.

May 08

Student-driven plant breeding symposium addresses global challenges in the 21st century

By Isabel | Blog, GPC Community

This week we spoke to Francisco Gomez and Ammani Kyanam, graduate students in the Soil and Crop Science Department at Texas A&M University, USA. They were part of the organizing committee for the recent Texas A&M Plant Breeding Symposium, a successful meeting run entirely by students at the University.

Francisco Gomez and Ammani Kyanam, part of the student organizing committee of the Plant Breeding Symposium

Could you begin with a brief introduction to the Plant Breeding Symposium held at Texas A&M in February?

Texas A&M University is one of the largest academic and public plant breeding institutions worldwide, which trains breeders in a variety of programs. Every year, students at the University organize the Texas A&M Plant Breeding Symposium, which is part of the DuPont Pioneer series of symposia. The symposium provides a platform for graduate students to bridge the interaction between the public and private sectors and engage in conversations about the grand challenges facing humanity that could be addressed by plant breeding. It’s also a great chance to network with faculty, students, and industry representatives.

Could you tell us more about this theme and how the different sessions were chosen?

We wanted the theme of the meeting to mirror the university’s goal of thinking big to pinpoint solutions to modern global challenges using plant science and breeding. Every member of the committee had the opportunity propose a theme, which were then put to a vote.

Nikolai Vavilov, a Russian botanist and geneticist, was the inspiration for this year’s symposium. Image credit: Public Domain.

This year’s theme, “The Vavilov Method: Utilizing Genetic Diversity”, celebrated the life and career of Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov, who identified the centers of origin of cultivated plants. We invited plant scientists and breeders who are applying Vavilov’s ideas through the conservation, collection, and effective utilization of genetic diversity in modern crop breeding programs. This year we also developed a workshop entitled “Where does a breeder go to find genetic diversity?”, which allowed students and faculty to talk about the importance of utilizing genetic diversity in crop improvement and to learn new tools to help them incorporate genetic diversity in breeding programs.

Could you tell us more about how you developed the workshop?

Our aim for the workshop was to engage students and faculty on where we can find genetic diversity, how we can use it, and to include a panel discussion on the challenges and the future of genetic diversity in modern plant breeding programs. As a new value-added event, the workshop was challenging to set up because it required a different set of skills to the rest of the meeting. Once we had an idea of what we wanted, we set up an initial meeting with our speakers where we brainstormed ideas. After several online meetings and e-mails with Professor Paul Gepts (UC Davis), Dr. Colin Khoury (Agricultural Research Service, USDA; check out his recent GPC blog here!), and Professor Susan McCouch (Cornell University), we finalized the structure of the workshop, the layout of the sessions, and the objectives for the speakers. We also had a representative from DivSeek, Dr. Ruth Bastow, on the discussion panel, who contributed to our discussion on future tools for accessing diversity in the future.

How has the symposium grown since the inaugural meeting in 2015?

Every year we want to make the symposium a memorable event, and we want other students and faculty to really get something out of it. We are learning more and more about the students and faculty with these events, particularly in terms of which topics are the most exciting or interesting. The symposium has also grown into a two-day event, with this year’s inclusion of the workshop.

Did you have to overcome any challenges in the organization of the event?

One of our biggest challenges was to secure funding for the event, which is free to attend. To add further value to our event, we wanted to have additional components such as a student research competition and/or workshop, which meant we had to aggressively fundraise from multiple sources. This involved writing a lot of grant proposals both to plant sciences departments across Texas A&M University, as well as to other sources of external funding.

We are grateful to DuPont Pioneer for providing a large amount of the funding. In 2017, we also received sponsorship from the Texas Institute for Genomic Science and Society, Departments of Soil and Crop Sciences, Molecular and Environmental Plant Science, Horticulture, Plant Pathology, and Biology, Texas Grain Sorghum Association, Texas Peanut Producers Board, and Cotton Incorporated. Our beverage sponsor was Pepsi and Kind Snacks was our snack sponsor.

What advice would you give a graduate student trying to organize a similar event?

Plan early and set small goals! Communication is key for a large team to organize such an event. We encourage groups to use Slack or some sort of team work interface. It really helped us to be in constant communication with each other during the months leading up to the symposium.

Could you tell us a little about your own research?

My research (Francisco Gomez) is focused on identifying genomic regions (known as quantitative trait loci; QTLs) associated with mechanical traits that are known to be associated with stem lodging, a major agronomic problem that reduces yields worldwide. My colleague and co-chair, Ammani Kyanam, received her Masters in Plant Breeding in while working in the cotton cytogenetics program in our department. Her research focused on developing genomic tools to facilitate the development of Chromosome Segment Substitution Lines for upland cotton. She is currently mapping QTLs for aphid resistance in sorghum for her Ph.D. You can learn more about the research of our individual committee members at http://plantbreedingsymposium.com/committee/.

How can our readers connect with you?

We have a strong social media presence via Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, where we post event videos, photos and periodical updates. Check them out below!

Facebook: TAMUPBsymposium

Instagram: @pbsymposium

Twitter: @pbsymposium

YouTube: Texas A&M Plant Breeding Symposium

Website: plantbreedingsymposium.com

Email: mailto:pbsymposium@gmail.com

Mar 30

Plants in Action! Developing a free expert-written plant science textbook

By Isabel | ASPS, Blog, New Zealand Society of Plant Biologists, Public Engagement

Plants in Action!

Alert: Teachers of plant physiology!

Have you ever wanted a free, on-line textbook written by experts and regularly updated?

Plants in Action is an on-line resource for students and academics teaching plant function to undergrads, published by the Australian and New Zealand societies of plant science. Each chapter has up to 100 illustrations suitable for Powerpoint presentations. It is also ideal for graduate students and post-docs in molecular biology looking for the whole-plant context for their work. Of the original 20 chapters, ten have been fully revised.

Here, we speak to Professor Susanne Schmidt (The University of Queensland) and Chief Editor Professor Rana Munns (CSIRO) about their work in developing this fantastic resource.

Could you begin by describing the Plants in Action (PiA) textbook and how the idea first came about?

The original editors and contributors produced a textbook on plant function that used examples from the southern hemisphere, with view of adaptations in nature to performance in cultivation. They were motived to communicate the strong plant science in Australia and New Zealand. PiA was born as a textbook in 1999, and ten years later went open-access and free online.

Who are your target audience?

Undergraduate students, educators, practitioners and researchers, and others interested in plants and how they function. PiA gets thousands of hits per day from around the globe, including developing countries.

What topics do you cover?

To the best of my knowledge, PiA is the only comprehensive plant science textbook with a southern hemisphere perspective. It covers molecular, cellular, and whole-plant function, in ecophysiology and vegetation-environment interactions, from Antarctica to the tropics. PiA features plants that are some of the best studied genetic models and crops, as well as wild plants.

The topics covered in Chapter 4: Nutrient uptake by plants involving beneficial microorganisms. Image credit: Scott Buckley, The University of Queensland.

Who has contributed to the textbook, and how did you enlist potential collaborators?

PiA was written by Australian and New Zealand plant scientists from a range of institutions, many of whom have worked on both editions. Chief Editor Dr Rana Munns and the chapter editors find new contributors if the original authors are not available, although occasionally authors volunteer contributions

What changes have you made in the second edition, and how are the revisions coming along?

PiA2 is being updated to reflect recent advances in plant science, and has a new look as software enables ever more attractive layouts, with no limit for images and illustrations. PiA can be read online and is easily printed, which is important for internet-challenged regions and for students wanting to add notes. Ten chapters are fully updated with several chapters expanded.

Revisions can be made instantly (as a wiki) but take a little longer if the expert skills of our IT assistants are required. Complete revisions of chapters are slower to come on board.

Encouragingly, some excellent contributions have recently been made by junior scientists who see a strong value in developing an open-access resource to share their expertise widely.

You mentioned the text can be translated into different languages. How might users go about getting a textbook in their native language?

They can contact the Australian Society of Plant Scientists (admin@asps.org.au) and receive Word or PDF versions of individual chapters, with permission to translate and reproduce.

The project is sponsored by the Australian and New Zealand societies of plants scientists, ACIAR, and the University of Queensland. Could you elaborate on how this funding was acquired, if possible?

ACIAR (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research) was our first sponsor. They saw the value of an open-access resource, particularly for plant biologists in developing countries and the free exchange of knowledge. The University of Queensland (UQ) came on board to provide the host server as PiA supports teaching at UQ with strengths in agriculture and environmental science. Sponsorship was also provided by the Western Sydney University, the University of Western Australia, and the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics. The societies of plant science in Australia and New Zealand are ongoing supporters and PiA remains predominantly the product of their members.

Are you looking to expand on the work in the future? How can potential contributors get involved?

It would be marvelous to have a person with time and expertise to develop further materials to add to PiA2 in collaboration with editors, authors, educational designers, and students. This could include material specifically designed for schools and interactive learning tools for students of all levels. We welcome all contributors (irrespective of their connections to the plant societies), and they can contact Rana or any chapter editor.

Without plants, Earth would not give us habitat, food and materials. But with 25% of the global flora threatened with extinction, we need more people to understand plants, and what we need to do protect them and their habitats.

The first edition of Plants in Action was published by the Australian and New Zealand societies of plant science as a hardcover book in 1999, which is also now free on-line (http://plantsinaction.science.uq.edu.au/edition1/).

The PiA text can be translated into other languages. Please direct enquiries to the Chief Editor Professor Rana Munns via the Australian Society of Plant Scientists: admin@asps.org.au.

All images are courtesy of the Plants in Action team, and are used with permission.

Mar 29

Early Career Researcher travel bursary to attend the State of the World’s Plants Symposium 2017

By Isabel | Blog, Scientific Meetings, SEB

The Society for Experimental Biology have very kindly offered to sponsor one early career researcher (PhD student or postdoctoral researcher within five years of obtaining PhD) to attend the State of the World’s Plants Symposium 2017 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK). The recipient will receive up to £1000 to support their meeting registration, travel, and accommodation costs to attend the meeting, which will be held at the Jodrell Laboratory, RBG Kew, on the 25^th and 26^th May 2017.

The bursary is offered to promote the international collaboration goals of the Society for Experimental Biology and the Global Plant Council, and applications from all countries are welcomed.

In return for this generous bursary, the student will be expected to write a 500-1000 word blog post about the meeting for the Global Plant Council blog.

In order to be eligible for the State of the World’s Plants bursary, you must be:

An early career researcher (PhD student or postdoctoral researcher with less than five years of experience after completing PhD) in plant science.
Available and able to attend the State of the World’s Plants Symposium 2017.
A member of the Society for Experimental Biology or willing to join if you are awarded the bursary.

To apply for this bursary, please send an email containing the following information to Sarah Jose (sarah@globalplantcouncil.org) by 9 am (BST) on Tuesday 18^th April 2017:

Name
Institutional address
Research topic
Why would attending this meeting help your future career? (250 word limit)
What else would you gain from attending? (250 word limit)
Do you intend to present a poster at the meeting?
A signed statement from your PhD supervisor/Head of Department confirming that you are a student or an early career researcher (please scan this and send as an attachment).

Dec 11

Making Plant Genomics Front Page News with an Emblematic Genome Project: The Bauhinia Flower

By Isabel | Blog, Future Directions

Bahunia is the national flower of Hong Kong, GigaScience is launching a crowdfunding campaign to learn more about the biological and genetic history of this flower.

By Scott Edmunds, Executive Editor, GigaScience Journal

‘Big Data’ is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in our lives, and we at GigaScience are big fans of approaches democratizing its utility through crowdfunding and crowdsourcing. With much mistrust and fear of genetic technologies there is also a huge need to educate and throw light on “what goes on under the hood” during the process of genomic sequencing and research.

After helping promote community genome and microbiome projects such as the Puerto Rican “peoples parrot”, Azolla Genome, Kittybiome, and the community cactus (previously highlighted in the Global Plant Council Blog), the team at GigaScience has finally decided to launch our own.

Inspired by our Hong Kong home, this month we’ve launched an exciting new crowdfunding project to help learn about the enigmatic biological and genetic history of the beautiful symbol of Hong Kong: the Bauhinia flower.

Hong Kong’s emblem is the beautiful flower of the Hong Kong Orchid Tree Bauhinia x blakeana: it is mysterious in origin, and lovely along the roadside and in any garden. Being used as a food crop in India and Nepal, Bauhinias are actually a legume rather than an orchid, and while a transcriptome has been sequenced as part of the 1KP project (Bauhinia tomentosa) no species of the genus has yet had its genome sequenced.

A Brief History of Bauhinia blakeana

It was first discovered in the 1880’s by the famous horticulturist Father Jean-Marie Delavey

The Bahunia flower is the symbol of Hong Kong

growing on a remote mountainside in Hong Kong, but how it got there is a mystery – especially since it is sterile. The missionary collector subsequently propagated it in the grounds of the nearby Pokfulam Sanatorium, and from there it was introduced to the Hong Kong Botanic Gardens and across the world. Originally described as a new species in 1908, it was subsequently named after the Hong Kong governor Sir Henry Blake, who had a strong interest in botany. We have an opportunity to get a glimpse into this fascinating history by carrying out a crowdfunding project to determine its entire genetic make up.

In addition, it’s a project we are trying to get everyone involved in: from gardeners to botanists, historians to photographers, university researchers to school children – really, anyone interested in being a part of Hong Kong’s First Emblematic Genome Project and understanding the biological secrets of this unique flower.

Plant Genomics for the Masses

Teaming up with BGI Hong Kong and scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, this new crowdfunding project will use one of the best techniques to help uncover the secrets of any living being: genomic sequencing. While the cost of sequencing has crashed a million fold since the human genome project, plant genomes are still challenging. While Bauhinia have a relatively small genome (0.6C), being a hybrid means it will be very challenging to assemble using current short-read technologies. To get around this we are having to sequence the two likely parents first, pushing the reagent costs that we need to cover through crowdfunding up to about $10,000. Studies using individual genetic markers have shown that the species is likely a hybrid of two local species, Bauhinia variegata and Bauhinia purpurea, but this has yet to be confirmed at a genomic scale.

Genome sequencing is also one of the key technologies defining the 21st century, and a field in which Hong Kong has made major advances (for example in BGI Hong Kong’s giant sequencing capacity, as well circulating DNA diagnostics), though more effort is needed to engage and inform the general public.

Through sequencing the genome of our emblem to better understand where it came from; this will help to train local students to assemble and analyze the data – crucial skills needed for this field to advance; and engage and educate the public through local pride. Outreach and awareness-building is key, and we have already managed to get plant genomics and Bauhinia onto the front cover of the SCMP Sunday Magazine and on Hong Kong radio.

You can also access the YouKu version of the above video here.

Get involved!

The project seeks a variety of things from the community: at its most basic level, help in the form of donations can be provided at the project’s website. As a community project no contribution is too small, so please contribute via the crowdfunding page.

Furthermore, we’ll be carrying out community engagement and citizen science in the form of Bauhinia Watch, where people in the community can inform researchers about sightings of the flower and its relatives, and look for the hypothesized very rare individual plants that may produce seeds. Photographs along with location information are especially desired, and can be shared with the global community on social media (use the #BauhiniaWatch hashtag).

Also, getting involved in educating the community is key. The project’s website, in addition to explaining the science behind the project, provides information for identifying the different Bauhinia species, which can be fun for curiosity driven individuals of any age. Now is the time! Bauhinia blakeana is in peak flowering season in Hong Kong from November to March.

Moreover, this is a great opportunity for creating school projects, to learn about botany, evolution, the latest scientific technologies, and to participate in the research or carry out fundraising to join the Bauhinia community.

This will be the first Hong Kong genome project: funded by the public; sequenced in Hong Kong; assembled and analyzed by local students; and directly shared with the community.

Being Open Data advocates, all data produced will immediately be shared with our GigaDB platform, and all methods, analyses and teaching materials will be captured and made open to empower others to carry out similar efforts around the world.

Bauhinia Genome welcomes contributions and interest from across the globe, hoping this serves as a model to inspire and inform other national genome projects, and aid the development of crucial genomic literacy and skills across the globe; inspiring and training a new generation of scientists to use these tools to tackle the biggest threats to mankind: climate change, disease and food security. We have already collected enough money to fund the transcriptome, and the next goal is to get enough funds to start sequencing the genomes of the family members. To enable us to do this support us through our crowdfunding site, like us on Facebook or twitter, and help spread the word.

For more information and to support the project visit the website and crowdfunding page. follow us on Twitter @BauhiniaGenome, or on Facebook, and include the hashtag #BauhiniaWatch for any news or pictures you’d like to share on social media.

Apr 28

The Next Generation

By Isabel | ASPB, Blog, Future Directions, GPC Community, SEB

Meet Amelia and Sarah, the two newest additions to the Global Plant Council team.

As a coalition of plant and crop societies from the around the globe, the Global Plant Council (GPC) aims to bring together scientists, policy makers and other stakeholders to engage in coordinated strategies to find solutions to global problems.

The GPC currently has 29 member organizations representing thousands of scientists in diverse disciplines around the world. Online media such as this blog and the @GlobalPlantGPC Twitter account provide a fantastic resource for our member organizations to stay in touch, share ideas and develop interdisciplinary collaborations.

For Spanish speakers, we’ve also recently launched a Spanish version of our Twitter feed at @GPC_EnEspanol, kindly translated for us by Juan-Diego Santillana-Ortiz, an Ecuadorian currently studying at Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Amelia is in the third year of her PhD at the John Innes Centre, Norwich UK. She is researching how altering the biochemistry of epicuticular waxes affects the physiology and ultimately yield of UK wheat. She tweets @AmeliaFrizell (https://twitter.com/AmeliaFrizell)

Amelia Frizell-Armitage is in the third year of her PhD at the John Innes Centre, Norwich UK. She is researching how altering the biochemistry of epicuticular waxes affects the physiology and ultimately yield of UK wheat. She tweets @AmeliaFrizell.

To further enhance this network, the GPC has awarded two New Media Fellowships to early career plant scientists Amelia Frizell-Armitage and Sarah Jose. The role of the Fellows will be to increase visibility of the GPC through managing this blog, devising new strategies to promote GPC activities and to increase traffic flow and engagement on Twitter.

A key priority will be to increase members’ contributions to this blog to promote their organizations and associated activities. Contributing to the blog is a fantastic way to interact with other GPC members, and we are always open to suggestions for guest posts. Perhaps you want to talk about a recent meeting or activity, discuss a particularly exciting piece of emerging research, promote a newly published book, or even just give some insight into your everyday life?

Sarah Jose is a third year PhD student at the University of Bristol, UK. She is investigating the link between wax biosynthesis and stomatal development in barley and Arabidopsis, and its potential impact on the water use efficiency of plants. Find her on Twitter @JoseSci.

Whatever it is, we want to hear from you! Please get in touch on Twitter, via the comments section on the blog, or by emailing our Outreach & Communications Manager Lisa Martin.

It is an exciting year ahead for the GPC with the launch of a new online platform for the plant community that is being built in partnership with the ASPB and with support from SEB. There are also various fundraising initiatives in the works, and a Stress Resilience Forum coming up in October, which is being organized in collaboration with SEB.

Stay tuned to this blog to keep up to date with all our activities. The events calendar for member organizations is also looking busy and vibrant, and can be found here.

students Archives - The Global Plant Council

The State of the World’s Plants 2017 by Bursary Winner Harison Andriambelo

Student-driven plant breeding symposium addresses global challenges in the 21st century

Plants in Action! Developing a free expert-written plant science textbook

Early Career Researcher travel bursary to attend the State of the World’s Plants Symposium 2017

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