Meeting Proposal: Microbiomes for Sustainable Agriculture; Asilomar, CA - Summer, 2015

该研讨会将汇集国际科学家小组，以综合研究知识，并确定有关植物及其相关微生物之间相互作用的研究重点。植物从微生物中获得各种益处，包括营养获取和效率、抗病性和胁迫耐受性。然而，所研究的微生物构成了与植物相关的多样性的一小部分。新的分子和计算工具现在可以对植物相关微生物组进行全面的，基于调查的研究。提高我们对微生物组的理解，并优化它们用于驯化作物，预计将大大提高农业系统的可持续性。为了确保会议的成果得到广泛应用，将包括来自美国的科学家，欧洲、非洲、亚洲和南美洲，以及非营利组织和政府组织的代表。 面对气候变化和人口增长带来的挑战，拟议会议的动机是在我们理解植物相关微生物组对农业生产力和可持续性的潜在贡献方面取得快速进展。在各种相关领域的领先专家之间举行一次有重点的会议，将在启动合作方面发挥独特的作用，加速对理解和利用植物相关微生物组的研究。拟议会议的目标是：（i）综合作物育种和作物微生物组的知识现状和相关技术;（ii）确定这些领域的关键研究需求，设定研究目标，并确定新的合作;（iii）启动出版物，以传达围绕未来研究目标和优先事项达成的共识，并开发新的合作研究项目。

This workshop will bring together and international group of scientists to synthesize research knowledge and identify research priorities about the interactions between plants and their associated microbes. Plants obtain a variety of benefits from microbes, including nutrient acquisition and efficiency, disease resistance, and stress tolerance. However, the microbes studied constitute a miniscule fraction of the diversity associated with plants. New molecular and computational tools now make it practical to conduct comprehensive, inquiry-based studies of plant-associated microbiomes. Improving our understanding of microbiomes and optimizing them for domesticated crop plants is expected to greatly enhance sustainability in agricultural systems. To ensure that the outcomes of the meeting will be broadly used, it will include scientists from the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America, and representatives of non-profit and governmental organizations. In the face of challenges posed by climate change and population growth, the motivation for the proposed meeting is to make rapid progress in our understanding of the potential contribution of plant-associated microbiomes to agricultural productivity and sustainability. A focused meeting among leading experts in a variety of related fields will be uniquely effective in initiating collaborations that accelerate research on understanding and utilizing plant-associated microbiomes. The objectives of the proposed meeting are: (i) synthesize the current state of knowledge, and associated technologies, in crop plant breeding and crop plant microbiomes; (ii) identify critical research needs in these areas, set research goals, and identify new collaborations; (iii) initiate publications to communicate the developed consensus around future research objectives and priorities and develop new collaborative research projects.