ID: 613 / 104

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: EVOLUTION AND DIVERSITY OF CARBON CONCENTRATING MECHANISMS (CCM) IN LAND PLANTS

Abstract: In carbon deficient growing conditions land plants repeatedly evolved strategies to improve the exploitation of internal carbon sources and the efficiency of Rubisco by controlling its operating conditions. C4, C2 and CAM photosynthesis or combinations of them are complex traits involving and influenced by a large number of associated traits. Their complexity involves anatomical, biochemical, developmental and gene regulatory changes compared to the ancestral C3 pathway. The multiple convergent evolution of CCMs show a number of common features but also a fascinating diversity of evolutionary pathways and selective pressures through which they seem to have originated. In the last 30 years great advances have been made to understand the function, ecology, genetic basis and evolutionary diversity of CCMs, and in exploring their potential to improve the stress resilience and productivity of crops. Nonetheless, there is much more to be investigated and CCM research is ever more relevant in view of climate change as carbon concentrating plant lineages invented strategies to save and recycle valuable resources such as water and nitrogen. A lot can be learned from cryptic, intermediate or mixed forms of CCMs. However, these have not been studied intensively due to more elaborate and time consuming experimental approaches and intensive sampling needed to discover and explore them. We would like to dedicate this symposium to the diversity of CCM evolution with particular focus on intermediate, mixed or cryptic expression of them.

Speaker 1: John Cushman, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, jcushman@unr.edu Title: Leveraging facultative CAM for engineering synthetic CAM into C3 photosynthesis plants.

Speaker 2: Marjorie Lundgren, Lancaster Environment Center, University of Lancaster, m.lundgren@lancaster.ac.uk Title: C2 photosynthesis across scales

Speaker 3: Thibaud Messerschmid & Gudrun Kadereit, Botanical Garden Munich, section Systematics, Biodiversity & Evolution of Plants, LMU Munich Title: Diversity and evolution of CAM and CAM-related traits in the most species-rich Macaronesian plant radiation

Topics (Up to three): Comparative Genomics / Transcriptomics

Topic 2: Phylogenetics and Phylogenomics

Topic 3: Ecophysiology

Justification: Research on CCMs is a field of growing interest and highly relevant to our society. It covers numerous botanical disciplines such as evolutionary ecology, adaptation, phylogenomics (incl. hybridization and introgression), comparative genomics and transcriptomics, development and (ultra)structure. The symposium with bring together researchers from these different fields and foster innovative interdisciplinary research on CCMs. The list of potential speakers is extensive. We liste only a few above.