Head of School S Report

Head of School’s Report

It is an enormous pleasure to share the news with all that Professor Richard Hobbs has won one of the 15 Laureate Fellowships announced by Senator Kim Carr, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. The Laureate Fellowship is the replacement scheme for the Federation Fellowships and is part of the Australian Research Council’s National Competitive Grants Program. It is the highest award for any scientist in Australia. The Fellowship places a focus on teamwork, career paths and leadership and represents the pinnacle of research achievement in Australia.

An Australian Laureate Fellowship is worth around $2.7 million and will support Prof Hobbs’s research staff and students.

His research is focused on restoration ecology and the issues that impact on ecosystems such as land-use and climate change, invasive species and changed nutrient regimes.

Congratulations to Professor Hobbs and his team for this outstanding achievement.

The School is actively seeking participation from Alumni and community members for their donations for research scholarships through the Kwongan Foundation and though the UWA Office of Development

http://www.plants.uwa.edu.au/foundation

School Manager’s Report

The secondment to the astronomical world of the International Centre for Radioastronomy Research (ICRAR) was a good learning experience about the immense opportunities presented to Australia by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project http://www.skatelescope.org/

It is a pleasure to come back to Plant Biology. The School is progressing well and has trialled a new Key Performance Indicator model that has been used by all academics to map their KPIs and link it to their workload. It is anticipated that this model will help in further professional development opportunities for staff. The School has received over $5.4 million in research grants and 21 new students have joined for PhD or Masters programs.

The School has been proactive in encouraging staff to take leave to help with their work-life balance and also to manage the leave liability of the School. All staff are urgently requested to review their leave balance, plan for their leave and ensure that they book their leave.

Upcoming Events

Society for Ecological Restoration International Conference (SERI)

Perth, August 2009

http://www.seri2009.com.au/pages/home.html

Biodiversity in the wheat belt: where do we go?

Kwongan Colloquium and Field Trip
12-13 Sept 2009 (York)

OECD-GenomeAssociation-OZ09:
Towards the application of association mapping to plant genetic improvement

ICPBER will host an OECD-sponsored conference 9-12 November 2009.

www.oecd-genomeassociation-oz09.com

The conference is designed to challenge all plant breeders with the new technologies of association mapping. Major advances are occurring through genome association mapping in humans, animals and some plant species. OECD invited speakers are international experts in molecular marker discovery, plant genetic mapping, new biometrical approaches to plant breeding, human genetics and animal breeding.

Assoc. Professor Wallace Cowling is convenor of the conference.

Rhizosphere 3 International Conference

Perth, September 2011

Plant Biology Seminar Series

http://www.plants.uwa.edu.au/page/13134

News

ECOMOD Seminar and Discussion Group

Michael Renton and Rohan Sadler have formed a seminar and discussion group for plant biologists and ecologists with an interest in things quantitative and computational. The group aims to meet once a month for some informal presentations of research ideas, problems and questions, interspersed and followed by plenty of informal discussion and usually a few drinks. We try to keep the equations and mathematical jargon to a minimum (although it must be said that Rohan and Lalith need to be kept in line with their statistical modelling discussion). Anyone is welcome to come, and if you’d like to be on the mailing list, please contact Michael or Rohan .

Recent work presented in the group included Rohan talking about modelling grass structural patterns with spatial point processes, Sudheesh talking about herbicide resistance modelling, Michael talking about an agricultural land-use simulation optimisation model (LUSO) and Lalith talking about approaches for tackling a complex spatial data set on perennial legume seedling germination, survival and growth. Other presentations include efforts for analysing and simplifying a complex agricultural production simulation model (Padmaja), simulating wind-spread dispersal of plant pathogens (Dave), modelling optimal rooting strategies for phosphorus acquisition (Sanju), modelling weed seedbank dynamics (George), improving visualisation of root growth simulations (Mike), a decision-support tool for nitrogen application in wheat crops (Fumie) and plenty more exciting topics!

Awards

Ghazi Abu Rumman was awarded a travel grant from the Grassland Society of South Australia to visit Associate Professor Shimpei Takahashi at Tokyo Agricultural University in Japan for 2 weeks in October 2009. They will work together to write-up a paper from the collaborative research completed when Assoc. Prof. Takahashi spent 12 months study leave in Plant Biology.

A/Prof Takahashi & Ghazi Abu Rumman

New Postgraduate Students Joining Plant Biology

People Leaving Plant Biology

Xinhua He is now working for the Northern Research Station in the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science at Michigan Technological University in Michigan, United States.

Visitors to the School

Dr Rajasekaran Ravikesavan, Associate Professor at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India, is currently with the School of Plant Biology as a Visiting Research Fellow for a period of six months. He is professionally a Plant Breeder and has been awarded with an Endeavour Research Fellowship by the Department of Education, Employment and workspace Relations (DEEWR), Government of Australia, to take up a short research programme on Brassica. napus. His research is on “Associating variation for flowering time in the Lynx x Monty DH population with CONSTANS and FLC candidate genes”. Variation in flowering time will be examined in a doubled haploid population under long/short day regime, and QTL’s for flowering time will be identified. The project is supervised by Assoc. Prof. Wallace Cowling and Prof. Kadambot Siddique with collaborators Dr Mathew Nelson and Dr Sheng Chen.

Staff/Student Travel

Research

Cropping Systems

Minimising Nitrogen Leaching from Turfgrass: Louise Barton

Applying nitrogen fertiliser is an integral part of turfgrass management and is needed for maintaining turfgrass growth and aesthetics. However, best management practices for irrigation and fertiliser are needed to prevent the leaching of nitrogen. Nitrogen leaching is problematic as it can degrade surface- and ground-waters, especially in Perth’s sandy soils.

The UWA Turf Research Programme has been investigating irrigation and fertiliser management strategies that minimise nitrogen from turfgrass production and maintenance systems since 2001. The field-based research has been conducted at the UWA Turf Research Facility at Shenton Park Field Station, and has culminated in a number of scientific and industry publications. Findings have now been summarised in a 2-page factsheet that is freely available from the programmes’s website. To download the factsheet, view the list of publications, or learn more about the UWA Turf Research Programme, please go to www.plants.uwa.edu.au/research/turf.

Turf Nitrogen Cycle

George Wan at the turf plots

Professor Takahashi

Prof. Shimpei Takahashi commented that “The excellence of research in Plant Biology on salt-tolerant turfgrasses was the reason he chose to undertake study-leave in FNAS”. He studied growth and physiological responses of saltgrass, a halophytic grass being evaluated for use as turf on saline sites, to five salt levels in glasshouse experiments. “The 12 months at UWA working with Tim Colmer and Ghazi Abu Rumman has enabled us to study the ion concentrations in different parts of the plants”. The study evaluated how ions change in roots and shoots, as well as along different parts of the rhizomes. Rhizome ion relations had not previously been considered, yet planting of new sites often occurs from shredded rhizomes. The experiments have been completed and plant samples have been analysed for ions (Na, K, Cl) and sugar concentration in different plant tissues. Saltgrass retains good colour even when irrigated with saline water (up to sea water level) and retains low tissue levels of Na and Cl, but high K, when irrigated with 1.5 x concentration of seawater.

The glasshouse experiments complemented field trials being conducted by Ghazi at Wagin, as part of an ARC-Linkage project between UWA, DAFWA, and the Shire of Wagin.

Based on the significance of this research, Ghazi Abu Rumman will visit A/Prof. Takahashi in Tokyo for 2 weeks in October, to work together to write-up the paper.

Dormancy Release Inhibition in Annual Ryegrass Seeds

Danica Goggin’s work involves trying to unravel the mechanisms behind dormancy release and its inhibition in annual ryegrass seeds. Seeds that are imbibed in the dark progressively lose dormancy, whilst those kept in the light remain dormant. As non-dormant seeds then require light to germinate, the annual ryegrass seed is an ideal system to study the processes relating to dormancy separately from those involved in germination. We have found that inhibition of dormancy release involves the action of blue (probably cryptochrome) and green light photoreceptors, in contrast to germination, which specifically requires red light (perceived by phytochrome). Although green light has often been used as a “safe light” when studying plant responses, there is growing evidence that this wavelength has definite effects, distinct from red and blue light, on processes such as seedling growth, shade avoidance and plastid gene expression. The inhibition of dormancy release in annual ryegrass seeds exposed to green light is the first indication that imbibed seeds may also display non-phytochrome responses to this light quality.

We have identified some of the biochemical processes taking place in dark- and light-treated annual ryegrass seeds that may contribute to their differences in dormancy status. Dark-stratified seeds become less sensitive to abscisic acid, and, based on their ability to induce a-amylase activity upon transfer to germination conditions, more sensitive to gibberellins. Protein turnover is maintained in the dark, but light-stratified seeds show an inability to synthesise new proteins which may impair their ability to prepare for germination. Activity of a cell wall-hydrolysing enzyme (potentially involved in weakening the endosperm so that the seed can germinate) is maintained in the dark and inhibited by white, blue and green light. Interestingly, this enzyme is greatly stimulated by red light, confirming that the effects of the blue and green components of white light are much stronger than those of red light in dormant seeds.

Other aspects of our work include differential proteomic analyses between dark- and light-treated seeds and between genetically dormant and non-dormant seeds; assessment of the role of reactive oxygen species and stress proteins in dormancy; and an attempt to clarify the mysterious effects of fluridone (an inhibitor of abscisic acid synthesis) on annual ryegrass seeds.

Potential of Native Legumes for WA pastures

Jiayin Pang is researching WA pastures suitable for low phosphorus areas where lucerne performs poorly. The project is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia (DAFWA) and Heritage Seeds. Other project collaborators include the ChemCentre, the Facey Group and the Mingenew Irwin Group.

They have found that several herbaceous legumes may be suitable alternatives to lucerne in the areas where lucerne does not perform well such as acidic sandy soils, waterlogged or saline areas, and under hot and dry conditions.