Call for papers: Developing sustainable bioenergy crops for future climates

Rapid progress has been made over the last five years with respect to emerging new genomic technologies for crop improvement and this Annals of Botany Special Issue will be devoted to highlighting the latest findings and considering the potential of these technologies for the future deployment of bioenergy crops in the face of climate change. At the same time, cutting-edge research that provides insights into the complex plant traits underpinning drought tolerance and response to other abiotic and biotic stresses is required for these relatively new crops. Knowledge in this area will be brought together in this Special Issue, and there will be a focus on recent advances in high throughput phenotyping to unravel these complex responses.

The Annals of Botany Special Issue will cover:

• The changing climate, the availability of land, biomass supply and emergence of BECCS
• New genomic technologies for capturing wide genetic variation and their value to breeding in lignocellulosic crops
• Bioengineering progress in lignocellulosics crops and future prospects
• Complex phenotypes for future climates; drought tolerance and responses to multiple biotic and abiotic stresses
• Predictive modelling for yield and approaches to integrate genomic and phenomic data

The WATBIO Bioenergy 2017 congress will be held from 24–27 September 2017 at Oriel College, Oxford, UK bringing together researchers, breeders, growers and policy makers concerned with the development of new bioenergy crops for future climates. Annals of Botany will release the Special Issue on Developing Sustainable Bioenergy Crops for Future Climates in 2019, which will contain highlights from the meeting in Oxford.

The Special Issue will be edited by Guest Editors Rishi Bhalerao, Bill Davies, Iain Donnison, Antoine Harfouche, Joost Keurentjes, Michele Morgante, Donal Murphy-Boekern, Steve Long, Andrea Polle, Andrew Smith and Gail Taylor, and submissions will also be handled by Annals of Botany Reviews Editor Trude Schwarzacher.

The journal also welcomes submission of additional papers on this topic, which can be considered for inclusion in the Special Issue, following the usual peer-review process. All categories of manuscript are welcomed for this ‘open call for submissions’ including review articles, primary research articles and viewpoints [See the AoB Author Information for Authors].

Manuscripts must be written concisely in clear English, and must meet the criteria for publication in Annals of Botany: papers that are novel, substantial, and advancing the field of plant science. All papers in the Special Issue will be refereed against those criteria, and the usual standards for an international journal.

If you have a manuscript that you would like to be considered for this Special Issue of Annals of Botany, please send an outline (Title, Authors and 250–500 words) to office@annbot.com.

Update 12 Jan 2018: We now have a downloadable PDF leaflet for the call for papers here.