Conference: 2023 CO2 Assimilation in Plants from Genome to Biome Gordon Research Conference: May 6-12, 2023: Tuscany Il Ciocco, Via Giovanni Pascoli, Lucca (Barga), LU, Italy

Gordon Research Conferences, East Greenwich RI

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports registration expenses for participants in the May 2023 Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on CO2 Assimilation in Plants: Photosynthetic Efficiency in a Changing Climate, which explores the dynamics of carbon exchange between photosynthetic organisms and their environment. This area of active research is of critical importance to predicting how photosynthetic organisms respond to variable environments, managing natural ecosystems for biodiversity, productivity, and carbon storage, and promoting food and energy production for a growing world population. Photosynthesis research is an inherently interdisciplinary field, requiring basic scientific advances in many disciplines within plant, algal and microbial biology, coupled with efforts to integrate knowledge across molecular, cellular, organismal, and ecosystem scales. A major theme of the 2023 meeting will focus on obtaining a better understanding of how carbon dioxide uptake by plants will respond under current and future climate scenarios. The GRC and GRS bring together diverse and early-career scientists with senior scientists in the field to discuss cutting-edge research, and participation of early-career scientists from under-represented groups will be supported with the award. The GRC and GRS also foster collaborations among scientists from academia, industry, and government agencies that will guide and support photosynthesis research into the future. This Gordon Research Conference focuses on integrating fundamental scientific knowledge of carbon assimilation, source-sink relationships, and photosynthetic efficiency to better understand physiological mechanisms that underlie plant responses to biotic and abiotic factors and to link these traits to productivity and carbon storage at the global scale. These topics will be explored in relation to evolutionary mechanisms that led to novel plant innovations, modeling approaches to scale responses from cellular to ecosystem levels, metabolic feedbacks that link carbon dioxide assimilation to other physiological and developmental processes, and leveraging photosynthesis research to improve plant productivity. The subtheme for the 2023 GRC and GRS, Photosynthetic Efficiency in a Changing Climate, encompasses these fundamental scientific problems. This theme was chosen to highlight scientific questions to encourage collaborative, innovative approaches to solving global challenges associated with climate change, carbon storage, and food and energy security. The themes of the GRS and GRC were chosen to highlight key scientific questions, stimulate the exchange of ideas within a diverse scientific community, and encourage collaborative, innovative approaches to solving these global challenges. Attendees will be able to participate in professional development activities, including a GRS career panel discussion exploring diverse career paths in plant science and the GRC Power Hour which addresses diversity and inclusion in the scientific workplace. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.