Meeting: Plants Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Interface between Plant Abiotic and Biotic Stress Responses

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Worldwide, humans rely on plants for food, fiber, and fuel, and all nations face the daunting task of growing food for nine billion people by 2050 while at the same time reducing the carbon, fertilizer and water footprint of agriculture. In addition, the consensus prediction is that global climate change will destabilize the conditions for plant growth with higher CO2 levels and severe fluctuations in temperature and precipitation. These adverse conditions will likely favor the spread of plant pathogens into new geographic areas, compounding the problems for agriculture. Such a scenario increases the need to develop crops resistant to abiotic stress, pathogens and pests at a speed that cannot be met by breeding alone. The combination of abiotic and biotic stresses not only threatens agriculture, but also plants in natural environments that fulfill important ecosystem services. Addressing these major challenges will require a continued commitment to interdisciplinary and concerted research efforts to understand the mechanisms and genetic potential of plants responding to a combination of stresses.The 2015 Interdisciplinary Plant Group (IPG) Symposium, to be held from May 27 to 29, 2015 at the University of Missouri, has the theme Plants between a rock and a hard place: the interface between abiotic and biotic stress responses to promote the study of plant responses to multiple stresses under more complex environmental conditions. It will bring together 21 of the world's leading experts in plant stress biology to share their research over a two-and-a-half day period with the aim of providing a platform that promotes cross-disciplinary interactions, networking, and a lively exchange of ideas among the communities of scientists working on different plant stresses. An equally important goal of this project is to foster a supportive conference that includes students and post-doctoral researchers with the aim of improving the transfer of valuable insights into diverse topics in plant stress biology from one generation of scientists to the next. Poster talks, speed posters, and poster sessions will broaden participation by these early-career scientists. The project includes a concerted effort to enable attendance of the symposium by up to three undergraduate students from minority-serving institutions who will be recruited in conjunction with the University of Missouri summer undergraduate research internship program, along with undergraduate students and their faculty mentors from Midwest institutions that serve predominantly undergraduate students.