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

该奖项将为2013年2月24日至3月1日在加利福尼亚州文图拉举行的戈登植物-草食动物相互作用研究会议提供支持。本次会议聚焦于新出现的话题，并以经验和理论的混合为重点。以讲座和海报为特色的会议是以讨论为导向的，允许在整个会议期间发起和继续进行活跃的跨学科对话。这次会议的目标是促进对以下问题的批判性见解的产生：植物如何自我防御，食草动物如何克服植物防御，从微生物到捕食者的其他生物如何改变植物防御和食草动物的表现，以及这些特定物种的相互作用是否扩大到群落和景观。有待解决的研究前景包括植物的防御进化，次生代谢物和植物营养之间的相互作用，对植物防御表达和草食动物的分布和丰度的先前攻击(诱导)的后果，植物-草食-敌人相互作用的微生物中介，以及群落或景观水平的变化如何改变这些相互作用。更广泛的影响：本次会议的轻松氛围旨在产生激动人心的互动、持久的网络和跨学科合作。这一奖项将用于支持年轻科学家的出席，包括研究生、博士后和助理教授，并努力招聘代表性不足的少数群体。

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.