Organizer’s report. Editorial-board-reviewed article

Jansen, Marcel A. K.

Cork Open Research Archive

UCC Library and UCC researchers have made this item openly available.Please let us know how this has helped you. Thanks!Title UV4Plants workshop 2019: UV-B and climate change; impacts onplants and vegetationAuthor(s) Jansen, Marcel A. K.Publication date 2019-01-13Original citation Jansen, M. A. K. (2019) 'UV4Plants workshop 2019: UV-B and climatechange; impacts on plants and vegetation', UV4Plants Bulletin, 2019(1),pp. 35-38. doi: 10.19232/uv4pb.2019.1.12Type of publication Article (peer-reviewed)Link to publisher'sversionhttps://www.uv4plants.org/ojs/index.php/uv4pbulletin/article/view/uv4pb-2019-1-12http://uvled4crops.ucc.ie/2019/02/26/uv4plants-workshop-2019/http://dx.doi.org/10.19232/uv4pb.2019.1.12Access to the full text of the published version may require asubscription.Rights © 2019, the Authors. Licensed under  the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/Item downloadedfromhttp://hdl.handle.net/10468/9540Downloaded on 2021-11-27T09:25:28ZUV4Plants Bulletin, 2019, no. 1 Organizer’s reportUV4Plants workshop in Cork, Ireland‘UV-B and Climate Change; impacts on plants and vegetation’Marcel A. K. jansen, ORCID: 0000-0003-2014-5859School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork, IrelandDOI: 10.19232/uv4pb.2019.1.12 © 2019 The Authors, licensed under (CC BY-SA 3.0)The overarching aim of the Cork workshopwas to explore the interactive effects of UV-B and climate change parameters on plantsand vegetation.A total of 28 researchers attended theworkshop, which was organised under theauspices of the International Association forPlant UV-research (UV4Plants). The works-hop was hosted by University College Cork(UCC) and generously sponsored by the IrishEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) andScience Foundation Ireland (SFI). Attendeescame from Ireland, Norway, Finland, Sweden,Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Germany,Belgium, France, and Mexico, and the groupdisplayed a good gender balance (13/15) anda mix of early career stage (11) and more es-tablished researchers (17). The meeting wasorganised by Marcel Jansen (School of Biolo-gical, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Uni-versity College Cork, Ireland) with the helpof a Scientific Committee comprised of ÉvaHideg (Department of Plant Biology, Instituteof Biology, University of Pécs, Hungary) andOtmar Urban (Laboratory of Ecological PlantPhysiology, CzechGlobe, Brno, Czech Repu-blic).Attendees braved tough weather on Mon-day April 15 (54.6 mm rain; wind gusts ofup to 45 knots, and a grand total of 0.0 hof sunshine), but inside the meeting roomthe talk was all about sunshine, heatwavesand drought. Matt Robson (Helsinki), presen-ted some key points from the recent quadren-nial report of the UNEP Environmental EffectsAssessment Panel, and gave an introductoryoverview of anticipated changes in both UV-B and climate, emphasising the local charac-ter of many of the changes. Thus, climatechange will be accompanied by decreasingUV levels in some places, but increasing le-vels in other places, especially those wheretropospheric air quality is improving.Phenology was central in the first sessionon Monday. Astrid Wingler (Cork) and LineNybakken (Ås) discussed the complex effectsof climate change on phenology, and whetherUV exposure can impede the climate changeinduced delay in autumnal leaf shedding an-d/or bud set, thus impacting on the length ofthe growing season.A range of studies focussed on the co-exposure with high UV, high CO2, high tem-peratures, and drought. Otmar Urban (Brno)gave a detailed overview of the responses ofvarious woody species exposed to combina-tions of UV and elevated CO2. The messagewas that over the course of the growing sea-son UV potentially diminishes the increasesin photosynthesis caused by enhanced CO2.Kristóf Csepregi (Pécs) reported on the inte-ractions between UV and low temperatures,and how UV can induce cross-tolerance. Di-ana Sáenz de la O (Queretaro) and LouiseRyan (Cork) reported on interactive respon-ses to UV and drought, and the scope to in-crease drought tolerance using UV. The roleof Reactive Oxygen Species was further de-©2019 by the authors 3510 M. A. K. Jansen: UV4Plants workshop in CorkFigure10.1:ParticipantsonApril15.36 ©2019 by the authorsUV4Plants Bulletin, 2019, no. 1tailed by Éva Hideg (Pécs) and Arnold Rácz(Pécs). Anikó Mátai (Pécs) reported that 𝛽-aminobutyric acid can induce antioxidant de-fences, and potentially modify UV-responses.Flavonoids are important antioxidants andtheir protective potential was highlighted inseveral talks. Regulation of flavonoid accu-mulation was explored by Els Prinsen (Ant-werpen) and Jakub Nezval (Ostrava). FraukePeschek (Kiel) reported on UV-induced DNAdamage in the context of the changing se-asons. Barbro Winkler (München) reportedon “deep phenotyping”, and emphasised theavailability of European platform facilitiesthat are available for plant impact studies.To comprehend the interactive effects ofmultiple climate parameters on plant growth,Ivan Couée (Rennes) presented a conceptualmodel that identified integrative signallinghubs, convergence points, in the plant. A talkby Juergen Kreyling (Greifswald), with the fas-cinating title “To replicate or not to replicate– that is the question” focussed on develop-ment of advanced experimental design thatis suitable for complex climate studies. Astrong case was made for unreplicated, gra-dient design.A special scenario in the climate changecontext is the increasing distribution ofplants to higher altitudes where UV levelsare high. Two studies reflected on the envi-ronmental parameters that determine plantgrowth at high altitudes. Tadeja Trošt (Lju-bljana) reported how slope orientation (i.e.north, south, east, west) affects biochemicaland anatomical characteristics of plants inthe Slovenian Alps, while Gaia Crestani (Pisa& Cork) reported on the adaptive strategy ofmaca, a crop grown in the Peruvian Andes ataltitudes above 4000 m.Although the meeting was “plant-focussed”, two highly relevant non-plantstudies were presented. Knut Solhaug (Ås)presented the case of low and high melaninaccumulating lichens. While melanin offersprotection against high light, this is accom-panied by warming of the lichens. This willpresent a complex trade-off with increasingglobal warming. Finally, Gary Kett (Cork)presented the interesting case of culturedpacific oysters which are threatened byvarious pathogens in warmer summers. Thecase was presented that UV radiation contri-butes to the lowering of pathogen infectionrates, a finding with potentially commercialrelevance.Discussions focussed on the direction offuture research and were led by Matt Rob-son (Helsinki), Åke Strid (Örebro), WolfgangBilger (Kiel) and Marcel Jansen (Cork). In thefirst discussion session, the emphasis was onthe “perceived gap” between laboratory andfield experiments, and on how this void canbe bridged. Overall, the delegates were posi-tive concerning the integration of laboratoryand field sciences as the climate conditionsin growth chambers are gradually becomingmore realistic, especially with the develop-ment of high output LEDs. It was recognisedthat one important reason to do laboratoryresearch was to explore, in a more control-led environment, findings made under fieldconditions and/or hypotheses derived basedon fieldwork. Conversely, it was argued thatfieldwork should be inspired by advances inour understanding of fundamental plant re-sponses, acquired in laboratory studies. Es-pecially the use of characterised mutants inecological studies should be encouraged asthis can generate novel insights in plant re-sponses. Furthermore, it was argued that“hybrid experiments” whereby plants are pre-grown in growth rooms prior to transfer tooutdoor experiments, or alternatively, whereplants are grown outdoors prior to exposureto UV or climate change under controlled labconditions, can meaningfully contribute tobridging the knowledge gap between labora-tory and field sciences. Overall, communica-tion between disciplines was seen to be a fac-tor of major importance, and this confirmsthe relevance of small discussion-intensiveworkshops such as this one, and others.In the second discussion session, the focus©2019 by the authors 3710 M. A. K. Jansen: UV4Plants workshop in CorkFigure 10.2: Participants on April 16.was on the reason why so many of the “stu-dies of interactive effects of climate changeand UV” give such variable (or even unpredic-table) responses. Various aspects were dis-cussed, including the lack of considerationof leaf and or plant developmental age. Inthe workshop, several studies showed thatdepending on leaf/plant age and/or expo-sure time, different physiological outcomesdo occur. The species specificity of plantresponses has also been noted. Finally, thequality (or lack of) UV measurements wasdiscussed. This is a longstanding problem,relating to available equipment and/or cali-bration. A major concern is that many ex-periments involve just one UV-dose and/orone climate change condition. Related tothis, there is no reason to believe that UV(and climate parameter induced) responseswill necessarily be linear, and it can be spe-culated that a mild increase in temperaturetogether with a mild increase in UV causecross-tolerance, but a higher increase in tem-perature together with a substantial increasein UV cause cross-sensitivity (i.e. aggravatedstress). This relates to the point that forpractical reasons many research groups arerestrained to do small experiments, which donot necessarily capture the complexity (i.e.full dose response) of the interactions be-tween climate change and altered UV. The-refore, the final session of the meeting fo-cussed on the development of joint “phyto-meter” experiments whereby similar experi-ments are performed simultaneously in dif-ferent countries. This positive engagement isan important outcome of the workshop, andpractical benefits of the meeting will be re-aped over the coming years. Mirroring thispositive outlook, the meeting started in a ho-wling rainstorm on April 15 (Figure 10.1), butended up with much brighter weather on the16th (Figure 10.2).Editorial-board-reviewed article.Published on-line on 2020-01-13.Edited by: Pedro J. Aphalo.38 ©2019 by the authors

UV4Plants workshop 2019: UV-B and climate change; impacts on plants and vegetation

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UV4Plants workshop 2019: UV-B and climate change; impacts on plants and vegetation

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