REMINDER:

For all those attending COMBIO 2018 this is a reminder that the ASPS AGM 2018 will be held in Room C2.2 at 12.55-1.55pm Wednesday 26th September.

Thanks,

 Matt Gilliham

View this Phytogen blog on the ASPS website here.

Count down to 60 years of ASPS – Plants in Action

Australian Society of Plant Scientists at 60.

Why we need more women.

John R Evans

I have been fortunate in my career to have wonderful female colleagues and I spent a productive post doctoral fellowship in Jan Anderson’s lab at CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra. Over the years Jan told me some of the challenges she faced and how she overcame them – they were real eye openers for me, possibly from a different era. I regret not recording the conversations because I cannot do justice to their content.

A celebration in Jan’s lab, 1986, (left to right) Fred Chow, Jan Anderson, John Evans, Stephanie McCaffery, David Goodchild, Hugo Scheer and Bob Porra. I had an oxygen electrode setup behind the champagne drinkers with the usual array of toxic inhibitors on the open shelf, but I did wear a lab coat when doing assays. 

There is no doubt that Plant Science as a profession has discriminated against women in the past. While improvements have occurred, there is much more to be done. The SAGE initiative http://www.sciencegenderequity.org.au/ is one way Australia is trying to raise awareness and improve gender equity in science, but I have no doubt that the most effective way to drive change will be by tying it to funding.

At the inaugural ASPP meeting in Adelaide in 1958, there were a few women amidst the 60 men. Over the years there have been 4 women presidents of the society (Adele Millerd 1977, Jan Anderson 1992, Rana Munns 2008 and Ros Gleadow 2010). More recently, there has been a conscious effort to improve gender balance in our awards and for conference speakers. There have been 3 women out of the last 8 Goldacre awards (Uli Mathesius, Chanyarat Puangfoo-Lonhienne, Min Chen) and RN Robertson lecturers (Rana Munns, Susanne von Caemmerer, Jean Finnegan) and  2 out of the last 8 JG Wood lecturers (Sally Smith, Marilyn Ball) . This happened because the Executive Committee was finally paying attention, but vigilance must been maintained.

It is great to be able to mark the 60^th anniversary of ASPS with the launch of the Jan Anderson award acknowledging research excellence by women in the 15 years after their PhD.

I would also like to pay tribute to the society’s two female life members: Tina Offler and Rana Munns. For many years, Tina produced our newsletter Phytogen and continues to be an active member of the society. Rana has been driving the second edition of Plants in Action http://plantsinaction.science.uq.edu.au/  along with Susanne Schmidt and Christine Beveridge – an awesome threesome. For a small society, I reckon Australian Plant Scientists have not only created a great legacy of research, discovery and education, but we still have so much more exciting research to do that is fundamental to maintaining our agriculture and unique flora.

Dear ASPS member,

This is a remainder for our annual society dinner registration, the ASPS dinner at ComBio2018 on Tuesday, 25^th September.

We are happy to extend the registration till Friday, 21^st September as many of you showed interest to attend the dinner. We have very limited tickets, so please confirm your spot by doing EFT before Friday, 21^st September.

For details, please follow our earlier email copied below.

We looking forward to see you all at ASPS dinner at ComBio2018

Warm regards,

ASPS Dinner Organising Committee

Count down to 60 years of ASPS

Update on Plants in Action

From Chapter 11: On left, genetically modified tomato with longer shelf life than the normal on right.

Rana Munns

Plants in Action continues to attract readers and teachers as an on-line resource. Originally published in 1999 (Editors Brian Atwell, Paul Kriedemann and Colin Turnbull) it was re-published in 2008 as a free on-line resource, hosted by The University of Queensland.

The original edition was built on contributions from over a hundred members of the Australian and New Zealand societies of plant science. The idea was to showcase Australian science and produce a textbook on plant function that used examples from the southern hemisphere. This first edition is now archived and so protected from security and other IT issues.

You can assess the archived PiA first edition here.

Of the original 20 chapters, ten are fully revised http://plantsinaction.science.uq.edu.au

Its usage is growing, at present about 2000 hits per day, mainly from India, USA, Australia and Canada. We have given permission for it to be translated into Hindi. The most popular chapters are on photosynthesis (Chapter 1) and phloem transport (Chapter 5). Requests from commercial publishers to reproduce illustrations are frequent, the most popular being the photos of aphids feeding on phloem sap, and GM tomato.

From Chapter 5: How to collect phloem sap.

You can access the Phytogen blog here.

Some reflections on the Australian Society of Plant Scientists (nee Physiologists) to mark the 60^th anniversary.

John R Evans

I am probably in a unique position from which to write this as I was born in the year that the society was founded and my father was one of those at the first meeting in 1958. A quick check of other significant Australian events in that year revealed that Australia’s first nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights became operational and there was the first televised Australian Federal election in November, which was won by the liberal government led by Menzies. Menzies deserves remembering because his optimistic vision provided massive investments into Science infrastructure through the funding of both the Parkes radio telescope and the Canberra Phytotron (the reason my father came to Canberra).

In those days it was difficult to move between cities and I quote from the recollections of Hal Hatch and Martin Canny: ‘It took two days in trains, overnight from Sydney to Melbourne, with a midnight change at Albury to accommodate a shift in rail gauge from 4 feet 8 1/2 inches (New South Wales) to the Victorian line gauge of 5 feet 3 inches, then another overnight trip to Adelaide, with yet another change in railway gauge down to 3 feet 6 inches for South Australia. I remember that western Victorian line.  The train stopped at some minor station where I read the sign: “Passengers wishing to join trains should exhibit the red flag during the hours of daylight, and light the red lantern during the hours of darkness.”

To come together to present and discuss science was special. It is hard now to conceive of those times when telephone calls were expensive so communication relied on exchanging letters in the mail. One learnt of progress elsewhere in the world by reading journals in the library.

I have copied the majority of the names of those that attended the first ASPP meeting in Adelaide into a table below because many of those names will be familiar. The list was dominated by people from CSIRO and the universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. What is also striking is that 8 served as President of the society over the coming decades and the three oldest awards of the society are named after three of those attending (see photos). The meeting was almost completely male and it took until our 10^th President to elect a woman. The society now has its fourth award, in memory of Jan Anderson, who became the second woman to serve as ASPS President.

I joined the society during my PhD and have attended many society meetings over the years. Before the meetings merged with ASBMB to form ComBio, they were held in university campuses which gave one a chance to discover the facilities around the country. It was a great chance for locals to showcase what their departments had to offer. The program often had time to include a field excursion. One that I remember in particular was in Perth where we travelled out to see a huge plastic cylinder erected around several trees to enable measurement of transpiration by the forest. There was concern that the removal of the forest during bauxite mining would result in incomplete use of the annual rainfall which would percolate into the saline subsoil and salinize the aquifer supplying Perth drinking water. The mining companies had to demonstrate that they could re-establish native vegetation following mining that would transpire all the annual rainfall. It was an impressive experimental setup, but then perhaps I am biased as gas exchange has been central to my career. Another memorable occasion was when a heated exchange occurred between Tom Sharkey and Brian Loveys (the presenter) over the identity of a compound affecting stomatal conductance during water stress – was it ABA or an artefact, phaseic acid? I probably have misremembered the chemical detail, but as a PhD student, I had not witnessed such lively arguments before and it was exciting to witness the debate.

Presenting talks in the 80s meant getting slides made through a time consuming photographic procedure. It was argued that the greatest clarity came from white text on a blue background. To create these slides was a two step process that first had to pass through black and white film, so this of course added to the delay. Alternatively, there were dreadful overhead projectors that were scarcely visible beyond the third row of seats. Then Powerpoint arrived and for several years we suffered horribly garish multicolour slides. Now it is so easy to create wonderful visual presentations and photograph things with your mobile phone. In the 80s, film was expensive and so few images are around to illustrate what is was like.

The formation of ComBio dramatically altered the style of the conference. The larger size and trade display required convention centres and raised to price. With more money, it was possible to invite international speakers and the meetings provided an opportunity to learn about a broader range of topics. The society subsidised students to encourage them to attend and tried to level the costs for those faced with longer journeys. With cheaper international travel and a proliferation of conferences, the role of our annual conference is changing. Next year will see the beginning of a new phase where we revert to a smaller society meeting in the odd years while retaining a combined meeting in even years. I hope this new format will prove to be a useful place to establish networking for younger plant scientists as these connections can last a lifetime and provide wonderful opportunities.

Something that took tremendous effort over many years was the publication of our text book Plants in Action. This was a combined effort with the New Zealand Society of Plant Biologists and the first edition was edited by Brian Atwell, Paul Kriedemann and Colin Turnbull. Over many years at the annual conference, Paul Kriedemann could be seen dragging his trolley laden with folders of pages that were accumulating towards the textbook. It brought together material contributed by many in the society and is now freely available on the web. To break free from the constraints of a hard copy, the financial cost of colour printing (for the first edition at least) and allow continuous updating, the second edition is now growing on the web, edited by Rana Munns, Susanne Schmidt and Christine Beveridge http://plantsinaction.science.uq.edu.au/content/contents-page. While it is idiosyncratic, Plants in Action captures much of the breadth of our science and presents it to the world. Australian plant science has made significant contributions and investigated challenges that face our native flora and agriculture, such as micronutrient deficiencies, water, temperature and light stresses.

After 60 years, the role of ASPS has changed. We are faced with the challenge of a small society with limited income that runs largely on the enthusiasm of volunteers. Together we are still able to have an impact, supporting students to attend conferences, providing awards that recognise excellence and contributing to a network to promote plant science both nationally and internationally. I hope we continue to thrive because ASPS has provided me and my colleagues with many opportunities and benefits.

List of many of the attendees at the first Australian Society of Plant Physiologists meeting in Adelaide, 19 August 1958:

Adamson D             U Sydney

Adamson H             U Sydney

Appleby C               CSIRO

Aspinall D                Waite

Boardman NK         CSIRO

Brownell PS            U Melbourne

Canny MJ                ICI ANZ

Carr DJ                    U Melbourne

Dainty J                   Edinburgh

Evans LT                  CSIRO                      President

Falk JE                     CSIRO

Gaff DF                    U Melbourne

Goldacre PL            CSIRO                      Goldacre Medal

Groenewegen H     CSIRO

Hatch MD               U Sydney                 President

Hope AB                  U Sydney

Kefford NP              CSIRO

McComb AJ            U Melbourne

Neales TF                U Melbourne

Paleg L                     Waite                      President

Pate JS                     U Sydney                 President

Paton DM               U Tasmania

Phillips J                  CSIRO

Robertson RN         U Sydney                 President     RN Robertson lecture

Sharwood L             U Adelaide

Specht RL                U Adelaide

Turner JS                 CSIRO                      President

Whitfeld PR            CSIRO

Williams RF             CSIRO

Wiskich JT               U Sydney                 President

Wood JG                 U Adelaide              President      JG Wood lecture

Woolhouse H         U Adelaide

Count down to 60 years of ASPS

We are in the process of writing a history of the Society planned for publication in 2019. This blog is a taste of the Society’s beginnings, but we are aware of gaps in our narrative.  Should anyone have other relevant information that you would be willing to share, we would be most appreciative.

Rewarding excellence, awards within our Society

Tina Offler and John Patrick, University of Newcastle

ASPP/ASPS recognises outstanding achievements of its membership in research and teaching through prestigious annual awards in addition to supporting student members with fellowships and accolades. The genesis of these awards and fellowships stretches across the life of ASPP/ASPS and, in particular, reflects a strong ongoing commitment to mentor and support early-mid career researchers.

Professor J (Joe) G Wood

Peter Goldacre stirring a brew of apple fruits to extract the cytokinins

The first steps along this pathway came soon after inception of the Society (1958) when the membership was shaken by two untimely deaths in their formative ranks – Professor J (Joe) G Wood (1959) and Dr Peter Goldacre (1960). JG Wood, the inaugural ASPP President is recognised as one of the three pioneers of Australian Plant Physiology (Ewart, Petrie and Wood – see Turner 1975). His successor to the ASPP Presidency, RN Robertson (affectionately known as “Sir Bob”), chaired the second ASPP AGM where it was agreed to honour JG Wood in an invited biennial memorial lecture. In introducing the JG Wood Memorial Lecture, successive ASPP/ASPS Presidents noted that the last PhD student to be supervised by Wood

Dr Peter Goldacre

was Dr (and then Professor Peter Brownell), a charming long-term ASPP/ASPS member who invariably cringed at this recognition in that ‘he may well have induced Wood’s fatal heart attack’. Again, under Sir Bob’s Presidency, the Peter Goldacre Award was established to commemorate Dr Peter Goldacre, an outstanding early career researcher, who at the time of his death (1960) had authored 13 papers, three of which appear in Nature. Initially, the recipient of the Peter Goldacre Award received a medal and a brief citation while an image of Peter Goldacre was projected stirring a large cauldron in a quest to isolate the cell division factor (cytokinin). Now the medal is augmented by a cash prize sponsored by Functional Plant Biology and a presentation by the recipient.

There then seems to have been an hiatus in establishing new awards, perhaps not for the want of trying. Does anyone have any information about the period from 1961 to 1997 that may throw some light on the intentions/aspirations of the serving Executive Committees in relation to awards?  Minutes of AGMs would be most useful.

The thread of expanding the portfolio of ASPS awards resurfaces in the 1990’s with the inaugural RN Robertson Lecture to honour Sir Bob’s considerable contributions and ongoing commitment to the Society presented in 1994. While humbled by this expression of recognition by the Society, Sir Bob was heard to reflect that ‘being present at a lecture in

RN Robertson taken next to the model he proposed for ATPase

one’s honour felt a bit like an out of body experience!’

In this period discussions were held about recognising the important role undergraduate teaching plays in promoting plant science and encouraging the next generation to consider the discipline as a career option. This was manifested in creating the ASPS-Teaching Award for excellence, innovation in, and/or contributions to, undergraduate teaching of plant science and is open to all members. The award was first conferred in 1997 together with the opportunity to present a paper on teaching plant science. It is comforting that it will be awarded in 2018 following a 4-year lapse.

Professor Jan Anderson

What has followed to complete the existing cohort of awards is the establishment of the ASPS-FPB Best Paper Award(2004) and most recently the Jan Anderson Award and Lecture (2018).  Both these awards are focused on early-mid career researchers, the latter restricted to female plant scientists in recognition of Jan’s stellar achievements in photosynthesis research and as a pioneering female scientist. These awards have been made possible by generous sponsorship; the ASPS-FPB Best Paper Award by Functional Plant Biology/CSIRO Publishing and the Jan Anderson Award by CSIRO Agriculture and Food, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis.

Following Sir Bob’s death in 2001, a fund was raised to support RN Robertson Travelling Fellowships in recognition of his sustained contribution to nurturing young plant scientists across four decades. The Fellowship provides graduate students and recent PhDs an opportunity to gain experience in another institution. The first Fellowship was awarded in 2006 and the accounts by recipients published in Phytogen attest to the value of this scheme.  One suspects that Sir Bob would be very satisfied with the outcomes.

Turner JS 1975.  The development of plant physiology in Australia  Records of the Australian Academy of Science, 3, 27-46.

Hello ASPS members,

We have new PhD scholarship opportunities available through the ASPS job page. You can access these here.

Some reflections on the Australian Society of Plant Scientists (nee Physiologists) to mark the 60^th anniversary.

John R Evans

I am probably in a unique position from which to write this as I was born in the year that the society was founded and my father was one of those at the first meeting in 1958. A quick check of other significant Australian events in that year revealed that Australia’s first nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights became operational and there was the first televised Australian Federal election in November, which was won by the liberal government led by Menzies. Menzies deserves remembering because his optimistic vision provided massive investments into Science infrastructure through the funding of both the Parkes radio telescope and the Canberra Phytotron (the reason my father came to Canberra).

In those days it was difficult to move between cities and I quote from the recollections of Hal Hatch and Martin Canny: ‘It took two days in trains, overnight from Sydney to Melbourne, with a midnight change at Albury to accommodate a shift in rail gauge from 4 feet 8 1/2 inches (New South Wales) to the Victorian line gauge of 5 feet 3 inches, then another overnight trip to Adelaide, with yet another change in railway gauge down to 3 feet 6 inches for South Australia. I remember that western Victorian line.  The train stopped at some minor station where I read the sign: “Passengers wishing to join trains should exhibit the red flag during the hours of daylight, and light the red lantern during the hours of darkness.”

To come together to present and discuss science was special. It is hard now to conceive of those times when telephone calls were expensive so communication relied on exchanging letters in the mail. One learnt of progress elsewhere in the world by reading journals in the library.

I have copied the majority of the names of those that attended the first ASPP meeting in Adelaide into a table below because many of those names will be familiar. The list was dominated by people from CSIRO and the universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. What is also striking is that 8 served as President of the society over the coming decades and the three oldest awards of the society are named after three of those attending (see photos). The meeting was almost completely male and it took until our 10^th President to elect a woman. The society now has its fourth award, in memory of Jan Anderson, who became the second woman to serve as ASPS President.

I joined the society during my PhD and have attended many society meetings over the years. Before the meetings merged with ASBMB to form ComBio, they were held in university campuses which gave one a chance to discover the facilities around the country. It was a great chance for locals to showcase what their departments had to offer. The program often had time to include a field excursion. One that I remember in particular was in Perth where we travelled out to see a huge plastic cylinder erected around several trees to enable measurement of transpiration by the forest. There was concern that the removal of the forest during bauxite mining would result in incomplete use of the annual rainfall which would percolate into the saline subsoil and salinize the aquifer supplying Perth drinking water. The mining companies had to demonstrate that they could re-establish native vegetation following mining that would transpire all the annual rainfall. It was an impressive experimental setup, but then perhaps I am biased as gas exchange has been central to my career. Another memorable occasion was when a heated exchange occurred between Tom Sharkey and Brian Loveys (the presenter) over the identity of a compound affecting stomatal conductance during water stress – was it ABA or an artefact, phaseic acid? I probably have misremembered the chemical detail, but as a PhD student, I had not witnessed such lively arguments before and it was exciting to witness the debate.

Presenting talks in the 80s meant getting slides made through a time consuming photographic procedure. It was argued that the greatest clarity came from white text on a blue background. To create these slides was a two step process that first had to pass through black and white film, so this of course added to the delay. Alternatively, there were dreadful overhead projectors that were scarcely visible beyond the third row of seats. Then Powerpoint arrived and for several years we suffered horribly garish multicolour slides. Now it is so easy to create wonderful visual presentations and photograph things with your mobile phone. In the 80s, film was expensive and so few images are around to illustrate what is was like.

The formation of ComBio dramatically altered the style of the conference. The larger size and trade display required convention centres and raised to price. With more money, it was possible to invite international speakers and the meetings provided an opportunity to learn about a broader range of topics. The society subsidised students to encourage them to attend and tried to level the costs for those faced with longer journeys. With cheaper international travel and a proliferation of conferences, the role of our annual conference is changing. Next year will see the beginning of a new phase where we revert to a smaller society meeting in the odd years while retaining a combined meeting in even years. I hope this new format will prove to be a useful place to establish networking for younger plant scientists as these connections can last a lifetime and provide wonderful opportunities.

Something that took tremendous effort over many years was the publication of our text book Plants in Action. This was a combined effort with the New Zealand Society of Plant Biologists and the first edition was edited by Brian Atwell, Paul Kriedemann and Colin Turnbull. Over many years at the annual conference, Paul Kriedemann could be seen dragging his trolley laden with folders of pages that were accumulating towards the textbook. It brought together material contributed by many in the society and is now freely available on the web. To break free from the constraints of a hard copy, the financial cost of colour printing (for the first edition at least) and allow continuous updating, the second edition is now growing on the web, edited by Rana Munns, Susanne Schmidt and Christine Beveridge http://plantsinaction.science.uq.edu.au/content/contents-page. While it is idiosyncratic, Plants in Action captures much of the breadth of our science and presents it to the world. Australian plant science has made significant contributions and investigated challenges that face our native flora and agriculture, such as micronutrient deficiencies, water, temperature and light stresses.

After 60 years, the role of ASPS has changed. We are faced with the challenge of a small society with limited income that runs largely on the enthusiasm of volunteers. Together we are still able to have an impact, supporting students to attend conferences, providing awards that recognise excellence and contributing to a network to promote plant science both nationally and internationally. I hope we continue to thrive because ASPS has provided me and my colleagues with many opportunities and benefits.

List of many of the attendees at the first Australian Society of Plant Physiologists meeting in Adelaide, 19 August 1958:

Adamson D             U Sydney

Adamson H             U Sydney

Appleby C               CSIRO

Aspinall D                Waite

Boardman NK         CSIRO

Brownell PS            U Melbourne

Canny MJ                ICI ANZ

Carr DJ                    U Melbourne

Dainty J                   Edinburgh

Evans LT                  CSIRO                      President

Falk JE                     CSIRO

Gaff DF                    U Melbourne

Goldacre PL            CSIRO                      Goldacre Medal

Groenewegen H     CSIRO

Hatch MD               U Sydney                 President

Hope AB                  U Sydney

Kefford NP              CSIRO

McComb AJ            U Melbourne

Neales TF                U Melbourne

Paleg L                     Waite                      President

Pate JS                     U Sydney                 President

Paton DM               U Tasmania

Phillips J                  CSIRO

Robertson RN         U Sydney                 President     RN Robertson lecture

Sharwood L             U Adelaide

Specht RL                U Adelaide

Turner JS                 CSIRO                      President

Whitfeld PR            CSIRO

Williams RF             CSIRO

Wiskich JT               U Sydney                 President

Wood JG                 U Adelaide              President      JG Wood lecture

Woolhouse H         U Adelaide