Gordon Research Conference on Plant Molecular Biology: Spatial and Temporal Dynamics in Plant Biology, Holderness, New Hampshire, June 14-19, 2020

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The 28th Gordon Research Conference on Plant Molecular Biology, entitled “Spatial and Temporal Dynamics in Plant Biology,” is scheduled for June 14-19, 2020 in Holderness, NH. Humanity faces the challenge of providing a global population of 9-10 billion with nourishing food, sustainably, in spite of loss of arable land and environmental degradation. Plants cannot move and so must deal with a changing and increasingly stressful environment by responding in place. This conference focuses on plant responses to their environment in real time, but at different time scales. For example, light perception is rapid (occurs in milliseconds), but many signaling cascades operate over minutes to hours. The biological circadian clock operates on a time scale of days yet is also critical for seasonal perception. Evolutionary time scales extend over years to millennia. Plant environmental responses also occur at different spatial scales, from subcellular and cellular to whole organ and whole plant. Moreover, plant responses to the environment are also influenced by their associated microbes, which include both beneficial and pathogenic interactions. Understanding the mechanistic basis of plant responses to their environment across both temporal and spatial scales is an important first step towards developing crops better able to maintain or even increase their productivity in the face of increasing and changing environmental stresses. The goal of this conference is the dissemination of these insights both within the scientific community and to the greater public to inform and enhance agricultural practice and its appreciation.To survive, plants must adapt to an ever-changing environment in real-time, yet current studies typically capture only a (single time point) snapshot of plant responses. This conference will highlight new methods and approaches to track and analyze dynamic responses in plants in real time, at different temporal and spatial scales – from the atomic dynamics of light perception by phytochrome, through epigenetic and transcription dynamics, to dynamics of cell biological and developmental processes, to whole plant physiology and evolutionary dynamics. Novel modeling and statistical approaches will be considered, including time-based studies, that reveal previously unknown gene-network interactions at a variety of levels that could not be identified using more conventional means. The small scale of the meeting, and the emphasis on discussion offers a unique opportunity to develop a community that embraces the importance of recognizing the multiple distinct scales of organization, both temporal and spatial, at which life, specifically plant life, operates. Plant signaling operates at different temporal and spatial scales from the evolution of plant species and communities, yet there are commonalities of logic that apply, and their application enriches and advances our work to understand plant biology at each of these scales. While one explicit objective is to broaden the thinking of the scientists who interact at this GRC, a parallel objective is to build and broaden the plant research community through the recruitment of new participants with new skill sets. This objective is as important as the specific research discussed at the GRC. This award was co-funded by the Plant Genome Research Program and the Plant, Fungal and Microbial Developmental Mechanisms Program in the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, and the Cellular Dynamics and Function Cluster in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.