“The Biology of Transpiration: From Guard Cells to Globe”
Conference Organized by Assmann, Long, and Mott Scheduled for October

Imagine you are marooned on an island with the scientist that you most admire. Now imagine that without the hassles of being stuck on an island, you are whisked away to a beautiful mountain resort where you will dine, relax, and discuss research with the greatest minds in your field.

This is the inspiring context in which researchers in the field of transpiration will meet on October 10–14. The small and intimate meeting titled, “The Biology of Transpiration: From Guard Cells to Globe,” will be held at the picturesque Snowbird Mountain Resort in Utah—what one organizer calls one of the most beautiful places in the country.

The organizers of the meeting are, Sarah M. (Sally) Assmann, Waller Professor of Plant Biology at Penn State University; Steve Long, Robert Emerson Professor of Plant Science and Crop Science at the University of Illinois; and Keith Mott, professor of biology at Utah State University and editor-in-chief of Plant, Cell & Environment. They have carefully designed this meeting to bring together scientists who study transpiration from disparate vantage points.

Although “transpiration” might only evoke memories of decorating plant branches with plastic sandwich bags in plant physiology class for those not in the field, Mott pointed out that, along with photosynthesis, transpiration is one of the most significant processes in plants. “Transpiration itself is the single largest water flux from terrestrial ecosystems,” said Mott. “That is where most of the water from the ground goes and how it gets into the atmosphere, so it has enormous implications for global climate modeling and agriculture.”

Long, a global change biologist, emphasized that the topics covered in this meeting will specifically include the whole process of water movement from the soil through the roots and via the vasculature to the leaves, and then out to the atmosphere via the stomata.

Although stomata researchers have been meeting regularly at specialized conferences since 1977, the organizers agree that a meeting that encompasses all areas of transpiration is long overdue.

“We now have insight into which genes control stomatal numbers and which genes control the ability of stomata to respond to the environment,” Long pointed out. “There have been major advances in determining the extent to which hydraulic restrictions both at the macro level of the xylem pipework and at the micro level of aquaporins in root and leaf cells may affect transpiration. In addition, noninvasive gas exchange and thermal imaging techniques now enable us to measure and analyze transpiration from the leaf to the landscape scale.”

Significant advances have been made at each level of transpiration biology, and the organizers hope this meeting will help catalyze collaborations between different labs that are needed to move into the next big phase of transpiration research.

“A next important phase will be integrating these individual discoveries to understand implications at the whole plant and system level, and the extent to which these discoveries can be applied in improving crop water use and in projecting global change impacts on the hydrologic cycle,” Long said.

Long, who edits the journal Global Change Biology, explained that many aspects of global change—such as increases in temperature, carbon dioxide, and tropospheric ozone—affect transpiration.

“Decreases in transpiration, particularly within continents, would lead to decreased rainfall and increased discharge into rivers, with implications for both crop yields and flooding,” Long warned.

The organizers hope that the dialogues at such a cross-disciplinary meeting will help researchers gain insight into possible adaptation strategies.

“Molecular biologists will be getting educated in whole plant global methods. Meanwhile, scientists working at the global level or ecophysiological level will be able to see how much model plants, such as Arabidopsis, have to offer in terms of being able to definitively test hypotheses,” Assmann noted. “Ecologists have for a long time realized the complexity of their systems. Signal transduction networks are equally as complicated and can really benefit from the systems biology approaches that have taken off in the last few years,” she said.

“A number of meetings in the past have focused on stomata at the single cell or single leaf level,” Assmann explained, “but we thought it was important to get people together working at all levels. More and more, we are becoming specialists rather than generalists; this is a way to bridge that gap.”

“The big difference between this meeting and meetings in the past on stomata is that this is a meeting on transpiration, which includes stomata but also a lot of other areas for which there are no specialized meetings,” Mott explained. “This is a chance for people who are all investigating the general topic of transpiration, but working on a variety of different areas and on many different scales, to get together and talk.”

If the scenic location itself isn’t enough to draw a crowd, the impressive list of speakers is. Assmann encourages and expects participation from both ecologically oriented scientists and those who are more laboratory oriented. “Our speaker list should attract all of them,” she said.

“Anyone who knows the area will realize that it is a very impressive line-up,” Mott added. You can see the list of confirmed speakers on the meeting flyer, posted on the ASPB website (links below). The speakers will be coming from several different countries, and the organizers anticipate that will encourage international attendance.

The meeting’s intimacy (registration is capped at 200) offers an opportunity for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to interact with established professors in their field—often a challenging feat at larger meetings.

“Graduate students and postdocs are encouraged to attend the meeting because they are the future of the field,” Mott says.

Some funding from the National Science Foundation is available to help support graduate student attendance at the meeting. And “early birds” who register before July 15th will enjoy a significant discount.

Because of the remote location of Snowbird, all participants will stay at the resort, adding to the meetings interactive retreat atmosphere.

The Snowbird resort boasts plenty of recreational activities to keep participants occupied during meeting breaks. “You can walk out your door and be hiking,” Assmann noted, “and we are planning some free time during daylight hours so people can go out and take advantage of the natural environment.”

In addition to maintaining hiking trails, the resort rents mountain bikes and offers tennis, swimming, aerobics, and yoga. If long days in the laboratory have left you out of shape, you can ride the aerial tram for breath-taking views without breaking a sweat.

For more information on the meeting or to register, please check out the following sites:
http://www.aspb.org/meetings/transpiration06/
http://www.aspb.org/meetings/transpiration06/TranspirationFlyer.pdf

Sarah Nell Davidson
Cornell University
snd2@cornell.edu