Alun SaltTweets from the final symposia of the International Botanical Congress.
| “ | #ibc18 Last day, final talks, closing session, farewells & tearful tweets. Off to Melbourne city lane way now to savour last Coffea arabica | |||
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| “ | Promised self I won’t cry, am a big Congress now. RT TimEntwisle #ibc18 Last day, final talks, closing session, farewells & tearful tweets.. | |||
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It is indeed the last day of the International Botanical Congress. There’s no plenary session this morning and the schedule of symposia is light with a mere 15 parallel sessions. As before I’ll try to collate the tweets by talk.
| “ | An early morning session on algae and how they are responding to environmental change, and dealing with it. Wow. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | John Raven: Marine phytoplankton main contributors to algal productivity and about half the total carbon fixed in biosphere. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | J Raven: CO2 up, carbonate in water goes down, and calcification (algal walls) goes down (more so if temperature goes up). Not good. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | J Raven: marine algae will move to higher latitudes to cope with CO2 induced ocean changes or if run out of latitude, evolve (if can) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | J Raven: Globally phytoplankton in warmer ocean have less N and P but more light, could offset stimulation by CO2. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | J Raven: Putting aside carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, temperature and light, iron may be limiting. Or may not. #itainteasy #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | J. Raven: Some +ve, some -ve, regarding evolutionary adaptation: some diffs in strains and ability to tolerate high tem. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Last session: rebuilding botanical capacity. Dealing with a pandemic of plant-blindness. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | First: Andrea Kramer on US Botanical Capacity Assessment Project. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: concern re: decline in botany since 1955. Study showing school children much more able to ID animals than plants. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: first challenge in defining boanical capacity. Overlap between education, research and management. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: precipitous decline in botany degrees vs general biology since c. 2000. Many unis have eliminated bot depts. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: US Bureau of Land Mgmt has 1 botanist per c. 4 million acres of land. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: survey of more than 1500 respondents who IDed themselves as working or studying in plant sciences. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: many respondents asking for field botany experience. A lot of courses no longer include it. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | @IBC11 Student decline problem: botanical research underpins solutions to most of world’s problems: food, health, fuel, environment #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Discussion of degree/dept loss http://bit.ly/nr5yUs & http://bit.ly/qDD62b & http://bit.ly/nGPZFw Please add: guest blog welcome #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: 30% of faculty teaching field bot will retire in next decade; 72% (of these?) believe their position will not be replaced. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Andrew Smith: giving a presentation on AM symbiosis from the "Smith symbiosis" #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: 14 recommendations from study, challenge how to deliver these and even to justify maintaining current levels of capacity. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kramer: getting msg to govt and public is vital. Full report at http://bgci.org/usa/bcap #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Bill Davies kicks off with some bon mots:How to increase food production without trashing the planet #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | And how to do it: The more we know about signalling systems, the more opportunities open up for crop improvement. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Need to reduce footprint of agriculture on environment: water, fertilizer, plastic film, fuel, salt, more water (all with more prodn) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | last morning of the #ibc18. Botanic Gardens and climate change session. Leif Schulman on European BGs and CC mitigation and adaptation. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Schulman. in the last 2-3 decades, conservation added to research, display and education as major function of botanic gardens. | |||
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| “ | Schulman: trend to urban ‘green roofs’ may introduce invasives, but may offer large reserve of biodiversity for conservation. #ibc18. | |||
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| “ | Pfiel: methods for detecting: Lineage sorting vs paralogy vs hybridisation.#ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Catriona Hurd: 35% of anthropogenic CO2 absorbed by oceans – good for us but no so good for marine organisms (change in acidity). #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hurd: low ocean pH will cause algal and invertebrate skeletons to dissolve #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Will leave ?@davidorlovich to track algae while I go and talk to Mr Marnie on @702sydney #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hurd: stole a flume from Port Harrison #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Roxi Steele @ #ibc18 # phylogenomics: costs for Illumina will soon compete with traditional DNA barcoding (100x data for 1-10x the cost) | |||
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| “ | Hurd: In the short term, coralline algae can compensate for low pH by raising it in the boundary layer. Long term effect unknown #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hurd: the benthic film on abalone photosynthesizes, slightly pushing up pH in boundary layer #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Enough algae for me. Heading back to fungi #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Roxi Steele @ #ibc18 #phylogenomics of Asparagales – good discussion after on ease of using silica-dried material and simple kits for #NGS! | |||
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| “ | Michael McKain @ #ibc18 – Origins of bimodal karyotype in Agavaceae, #plastome phylogenomics shows it evolved once, but how did it arise? | |||
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| “ | Michael McKain #Phylogenomics & #transcriptomics detect ancient polyploidy shared by Agave and Hosta (and not in Chlorophytum)! @ #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Wouldn’t it already except for multiplex/DNA prep/adapter-ligation cost? RT @JChrisPires: #ibc18 phylogenomics: NGS cost soon compete | |||
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| “ | Now: Alex Sumadijaya from Bogor on plant ID consistency. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Sumadijaya: big increase in demand for IDs from public over recent years. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Sumadijaya: six years of data, thousanfs of records, different patterns of demand for different families & genera. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Sumadijaya: dominant taxa brought for ID include Ficus, Cucurma, Zingiber, Syzygium & Piper i.e. economic pls. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Sumadijaya: working to encourage clients to do IDs themselves. This project done in his "spare" time. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Actually a little time for questions. And to breathe. Sumadijaya: about 10% of ID requests from repeat requesters. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Alex Sumadijaya on trends in plant identification services. #ibc18 why does human interest in plant taxa so trends from yr to yr? | |||
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| “ | BingRu Huang: amazing lower grass root production at higher soil temperature- thermal stress some spp better adapted. -omics approach #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now Miguel D’Avila De Moraes on strengthening plant conservation in Brazil. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moraes: urgent need work in areas with agricultural pressure on huge biodiversity. Many areas not collected for decades or centuries. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moraes: Brazil’s major exports are agricultural, developing economy. Difficult to reach and convince decision-makers. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moraes: increasing nos of masters grads and doctorates in Brazil, but hard to find a job. (Brazilian brain drain.) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moraes: need for Brazil to balance priorities inc. health, economic development and investment in science. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moraes: various bodies who can contribute- Br Natl Centre for Flora Conservation, Atlantic Rainforest Pact, Brazilian Checklist etc. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moraes: Brazilian Checklist available online, first step towards a national flora. With 42000 spp., ambitious to say the least! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Brazilian Checklist… I think this might be it: http://j.mp/9blCT8. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Moraes giving examples of workshops, courses etc. Extension program for Brazilian botanic gardens. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Maarten Christenhusz: how well do we understand the biogeography of neotropical plants. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Anton Wasson: breeding for root traits: need to identify germplasm with desirable traits, QTL map them and then use variation. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Wasson: In Australia, there is 10 mm subsoil water around 1.5m down, can increase grain yield by 0.6t/ha by accessing this. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Field material of wheat have root depth from 65cm to 180 cm depending on accession/genotype. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cavagnaro: mycorrhiza defective mutant tomatoes used in growth experiments praised by organic farmers! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cavagnaro: eating too much cassava leads to disease called Konzo, due to cyanogenic glycosides #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cavagnaro: never seen more arbuscules in a root as that in cassava #mycorrhizaheaven #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Safely back in the algal symposium. #ibc18 Just finished talk about blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) in streams (Faradina Merican). | |||
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| “ | Erica Young: Algae that might save the world… First up, biofuels. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Young: Traditionally microalgae in bioreactors – high maintenance, easily contaminated, require lighting and expensive to harvest. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | 4 olympic swim pools could culture world’s cotton but feedstock/sterilization cost same as US oil @TimEntwisle: algae in bioreactors #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Young: Alternative is to cultivate algae in wastewater – contribute to water treatment and produce fuel. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Young: Algae don’t naturally grow in monocultures so ‘algal consortia’ in yucky water [my term] good place to start for algal fuel. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Young: Cladophora (big green alga) grows well in wastewater effluent/easy to harvest/ high nutrient uptake capacity/cleans water. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Young: diatoms cover the Cladophora and they also provide other nice molecules, such as lipids. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Young: Use of mixed algal biomass for fuel could help fund water treatment plants, particularly in poorer communities. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Young: Don’t have luxury of excluding options for fossil fuel reduction: marine, freshwater, biofuels, lipids, cellulose…ALGAE#ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Young: Ends with "Pond Scum can save the world, if we really want it to". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Joe Zuccarello asks why will it work this time/already tried and expensive. Young: try smaller scale, & couple with water treatment. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Cornelia Lohne on reducing the climate footprint of a botanic garden. #ibc18 Berlin BG could sequester enough C for 300 cars/yr. | |||
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| “ | Lohne. Unfortunately the carbon sequestered in Berlin BG is more than offset by heating, lighting, use of peat. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Lohne: Berlin BG expermenting with making Terra Preta, black earth, a super fertile soil, by recycling organic matter. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | And by this Congress building in 1 wk? RT @Jim_Croft: carbon sequestered in Berlin BG more than offset by heating, lighting, peat. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Lohne: renovation on Berlin public greenhouse aimed to reduce carbon emission footprint by 50%. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Lohne. Berlin BG greenhouse renovation cost 16 million euros! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now Geoff Burrows on learning about plants in first year univ. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Burrows: noticed many students making mistakes in plant IDs using Rutaceae key. Issue with leaf morphology characters. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Burrows: describing this as an "uhoh rather than eureka moment". Students not getting the concepts he taught. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Burrows: significant improvement by showing clear photos of various different leaf arrangements. But what about distance education? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Just don’t start with electron transport in photosynthesis! RT @IBC11: Now Geoff Burrows on learning about plants in first year univ. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | He said something like "Leaf arrangement, this is simple stuff, it’s not double fertilisation!" RT @Pathh1 Just don’t start with… #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Burrows: created online interactive tutorials, students can see examples of alternate, opposite, whorled etc. and test themselves. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Burrows: application to aid in recognising major Aust plant families. Detailed photos of dissected flowers to learn floral formulae. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Burrows: great for prep and revision, int and ext students, range of material, class needn’t be in Spring! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Check out Geoff Burrows et al.’s stuff at: http://j.mp/mXnAqG #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ian Anderson: How much do ectomycorrhizal fungi sequester carbon? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ian Anderson: Different ectomycorrhizal fungi respond differently to high carbon #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ian Anderson: ectomycorrhizal fungus species richness didn’t change with high CO2, but rel abundance did. Nothing known for Australia #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now Claire Hemingway: "the bitter end of the IBC". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: "Scientists partnering with teachers and students in online plant inquiry projects". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: scientists sharing their love of the "aha" moments (rather than the "uhoh" moments, I guess!) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: training teachers in intensive workshops w scientists so they are comfortable using plant science examples in class. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: working in 34 US states and intl partnerings as well. Available online: http://j.mp/nHvYhp #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: student projects visible online, gives taste of scientific process and scrutiny. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: Middle school students most engaged and communicative with scientist mentors. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: reporting on work by Peterson and Stuessy to analyse stats on who is posting what, where etc. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: students w teachers who have attended workshops generally more engaged and able to apply concepts learnt. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: student comment to mentor- "I rest my future of plants in your hands". No pressure! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hemingway: student motivation & interest key drivers for their pursuing science. Program helps spark that interest. Now questions. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Have really enjoyed this session. And not just because it is the last! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Comment on need for field examination as well: textbooks, lab and online tend to present "the perfect example". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Unnamed Canberra bryologist jumping into the bot capacity discussion. Has the world gone mad? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Comment: teachers scared to admit they don’t know all the answers. But that’s what education is, knowing how to find out. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hoping there won’t be a punch-up in last session between the online and field proponents. It’s obvious that both are needed. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Two whole genome duplications in potato – Yang #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ian Dodd: In keeping with the usual parallel sessions on the same thing, roots and interaction with microorganisms in the soil. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Prokhorov presents a Google map of all the botanic gardens of the world. I had no idea there wew so many dots. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | 3K? RT @Jim_Croft: Prokhorov presents a Google map of all the botanic gardens of the world. I had no idea there wew so many dots. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Katsunori Aizawa on developing a new (and efficient) culture medium for growing Chlorella (small green algae) in bioreactors. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | John Beardall: Final talk of final general symposium session, on algae. Dimethyl sulphide! And algae. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Beardall: Algae draw down carbon but also get into sulphur: DMSP produced by algae, released as DMS and sulphate, forms clouds… #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Beardall: "sloppy feeding [by algae] leads to release of DMS" (> sulphate > cloud condensation nuclei > clouds > reflects sunlight) #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Beardall: DMSP higher as salinity goes up but lower as temperature goes down. But in single cells; may not apply to population. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Michael Kiehn (briefly fighting technology) "something like this should be expected when someone from Austria presents in Australia." #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Beardall: Conclusion: less DMSP production (at least in Gephryocapsa) as temps rise, less clouds, less reflection of solar radiation #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Symposium conclusion: algae may or may not save the world #ohwell #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Alexander Kocyan and JoAnne Birch @ #ibc18 phylogenetics of the asteliod clade of Asparagales – Australian origin ! | |||
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| “ | Michael Kiehn: optimizing conservation value of ex-situ collections of endandered species in #botanicgardens #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kiehn: describing a distributed network of conservation seed banks in Austria. We have one in Australia too. #thiscouldgetconfusing #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Klien: European BGs getting rid of Toxicodendron in collections. It is escaping locally. #whenplantsstrikeback #revengeoftheplant #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Kiehn. Erica verticillata extinct in the wild. present in 3 botanic gardens. basis of restoration project. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Oh no! Michael Kiehn mentions Wollemi nobilis as a botanic gardens plant conservation icon! Well, I guess someone was going to do it. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Have I mentioned we have a grove at Kew? RT @Jim_Croft: Wollemi nobilis as a botanic gardens plant conservation icon! ? #ibc18 | |||
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That concludes the morning session. There’s just the closing ceremony and then delegates will be allowed to escape back into the wild – unlike Kew’s Wollemi nobilis which won’t be escaping any time soon.
Photo by Alun Salt on flickr
