Gordon Research Conference on Plant-Herbivore Interaction, Ventura, CA, February 24 - March 1, 2013

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This award will provide support for a Gordon Research Conference on Plant-Herbivore Interaction to be held in Ventura, CA, February 24 - March 1, 2013. This conference focuses on emerging topics and features a mix of empirical and theoretical emphases. Sessions featuring talks and posters are discussion-oriented, allowing for lively interdisciplinary conversations to be initiated and continued throughout the meeting. The goal of the conference is to stimulate the production of critical insights into how plants defend themselves, ways in which herbivores overcome plant defenses, how other organisms, from microbes to predators, alter plant defenses and herbivore performance, and whether these species-specific interactions scale up to communities and landscapes. Research perspectives to be addressed include defense evolution in plants, the interplay between secondary metabolites and plant nutrients, the consequences of prior attack (induction) to plant defense expression and to the distribution and abundance of herbivores, microbial mediation of plant-herbivore-enemy interactions, and how shifts at the community or landscape level alter these interactions. Broader Impacts: The relaxed atmosphere of this conference is designed to generate stimulating interactions, lasting networks, and interdisciplinary collaborations. This award will be used to support the attendance of young scientists, including graduate students, post docs and assistant professors with efforts in place to recruit underrepresented minorities.