Life without plants? Not possible.

24 July, 2011
Botanical Congress, Media bulletins, Media releases

Life on Earth depends on plants, algae and fungi.

For humanity, all seven billion of us, they are the major source of food, clothing, shelter and medicine.

Our fossil fuels were formed by them. They clean our air and water, store carbon, and protect us from floods and drought.

Our native flora and our gardens are a source of inspiration and enjoyment for many. Society depends upon wise and responsible care of the botanical world around us.

This week we’re talking plants – the foundation of life on Earth. The world’s botanists are in Melbourne for the XVIII International Botanical Congress, opening tonight, closing Saturday.

We’ll have stories on feeding the world, using eucalyptus to make fuels, using sunflowers as drug factories, putting nature reserves in the right place, and dozens of other yarns.

We start with the challenge of feeding the world; dinosaur era flowers; an embargoed Nature story, and a set-back for Latin.

But first an introduction from Tim Entwisle and Anna Koltunow, the co-chairs of the science committee – who also wrote the introduction above.

As botanical scientists we have a huge task ahead. We must continue to discover and document the vast diversity of life, making sure we know what is out there.

We need to find out how these plants, algae and fungi function so we can protect and use our plant biodiversity responsibly. Only then can we use this information to improve living standards around the world and find ways to manage natural resources in the context of global change and environmental impacts. Only then can we save our plants and their habitats.

The scientific program in this XVIII International Botanical Congress reflects the breadth, depth and critical importance of plant science in the 21st century. The program is rich and varied. Topics range from detailed studies of Australian eucalypts to the future of the world’s rainforests, from testing traditional medicinal plants, and understanding how genes regulate plant function and growth, and enable plant cells to communicate, to developing crops to feed the world, and resolving the tree of life itself.

Tomorrow, Monday, we’re releasing the following stories

  1. A Nature paper on making conservation reserves work – embargoed to 3 am Monday morning. If you’re on the embargo list for Nature or the AusSMC take a look. If you’re not, call me for a password, or wait for the morning, it will go live on our site at 4 am.  The work will be presented at the conference on Thursday by the Queensland-based team.
  2. Science and religion agree – again. Botanists catch up with the Church, and agree that new species descriptions don’t have to be in Latin. This will make a big difference to describing new species at a time when we need to understand how the world is changing.
    This story’s online now at http://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/media-releases/latin.
  3. How can we feed 9.5 billion people?
    Kenneth Cassman     from University of Nebraska will discuss food security as the human population reaches a climax of 9.5 billion.
    Richard Richards, Chief Research Scientist and Program Leader ‘High Performance Crops for Australia’, CSIRO Plant Industry, can talk on where advances in genetic improvement of major crops will come from in the next 20 years. Genetic engineering is likely to make only a small contribution to improving yields and tolerance to environmental stress he says.
    David Fischoff from Monsanto will discuss combining GM and non-GM technologies to improve our future food supply.
  4. The first flowers – synchrotron light has revealed fossil flowers from the Cretaceous period. Else Marie Friis, Professor, Department of Palaeobotany, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden will reveal her studies and she and her colleagues will preview their new book about fossil flowers.
  5. Climate change and wine – Snow Barlow, The University of Melbourne, will discuss:
  • How has climate change altered the climate in well-known wine regions?
  • How will the global wine industry respond to these challenges to established regions particularly if we, as consumers, wish to continue to savour the ‘grassiness’ of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc or the ‘white pepper’ of cool climate Shiraz?
  • What sort of wines can we look forward to in the future?

Snow is giving a free public lecture on Monday 25 July, 6:30pm, Plenary Hall, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre and there are public lectures every day.

Later in the week you’ll hear about:

  • The eucalyptus invasion and what it means for biofuels
  • The Atlas of Living Australia
  • Plant identification on your iPhone
  • Drugs from sunflowers
  • And much more

For more information:  call me on 0417 131 977,  niall@scienceinpublic.com.au or AJ Epstein on 0433 339 141 or email aj@scienceinpublic.com.au. We’ll be in the Media Room (214 from 8:30am Monday 25 July).