University of Helsinki
We are editing a handbook of methods for research on the effects of UV radiation on plants. The printed book will have about 200 A4 pages. We are writing it with LaTeX using MikTeX as the TeX engine, and WinEdt as editor. We are getting to the stage of producing page proofs for all authors and editors to check. This is the result of the activities of a technical group of the UV4growth COST action. The printed copies will be available at cost from Lulu.com and the PDF file will be available as a free or almost free download.
Update on the spectroradiometer
The people from Ocean Optics have been very helpful and have offered to check our Maya Pro and re-align the optics to try to improve its performance. I should note that the current performance is within specifications, we are just trying to tune the spectrometer to perform at its very best in the UV-B region. So after the end of summer campaign the Maya Pro will be sent to Ocean Optics.
A new postdoctoral researcher joins the team
Dr. Krõõt Aasamaa from Estonia joins the group. She has been studying stomatal responses and water relations at the University of Tartu. We are very happy to welcome her to our group.
COST action UV4growth conference in Szeged, Hungary
Matt, Luis, Lasse Ylianttila and myself participated in this meeting. All of us gave talks, and Lasse and myself taught at the worshop for ESRs on the day after the conference ended. The management committee (MC) meeting was on Monday. I took over from Lars Olof Björn the coordination of TG 1 “UV technology”. Lars Olof stepped down as leader for personal reasons. Lars Olof will replace me as assistant leader. Because I am now leader of TG 1, I stepped down as leader of working group 3 (WG3) and will be replaced by Riitta Julkunen-Titto.
There were about 100 participants in the conference (7 or 8 from Finland), including many of the most prominent researchers working on the effects of UV on plants. We made many contacts and had very interesting discussions. From the data presented in several talks, it is now clear that UVR8 is almost for sure the UV-B photoreceptor in plants.
In the conference Lasse talked about the calibrations and stray light corrections needed to take UV measurements with array spectrometers. He presented data from STUK’s Ocean Optics S2000 and our Ocean Optics Maya 2000 Pro. Matt presented his data on Nothofagus (both from his experiments in Tierra del Fuego and in Viikki). Luis presented some results on epidermal transmittance measured in Arabidopsis with our Dualex 3 FLAV. I presented our work on action spectra, from Titta’s, Luis’s and Sari’s experiments.
In the workshop Lasse gave a lecture on the pitfalls that one can run into when measuring UV-B. I gave a lecture on biological spectral weighting functions, biologically effective doses, and how to compare doses of UV from lamps and the sun. For the workshop practicals we took the Dualex and the Maya spectrometer to Szeged.
Szeged is a nice city and we managed to wander through the old city in spite of the packed conference programme. None of us took a camera to Szeged so we have no photos to post.
Our paper on action spectra is on-line
The paper How Realistically Does Outdoor UV-B Supplementation with Lamps Reflect Ozone Depletion: An Assessment of Enhancement Errors from our group and collaborators has been published on-line as Early View in Photochemistry and Photobiology.
Prof. Ariel Novoplansky’s visit
Prof. Novoplansky will arrive tomorrow and stay in Helsinki until Saturday.
He will give a talk on Monday 13 September at 15:15 titled “Ecological implications of plant communication”. (INFO building, lecture hall 2)
Knowing his earlier work, and having heard from him about current work in his lab, this promises to be a very very interesting talk.
Some key papers from Ariel’s lab:
Shemesh, H., A. Arbiv, M. Gersani, O. Ovadia, and A. Novoplansky. 2010. The effects of nutrient dynamics on root patch choice. PLoS ONE 5.
Novoplansky, A. 2009. Picking battles wisely: plant behaviour under competition. Plant Cell & Environment 32: 726-741.
Falik, O., Reides, P., Gersani, M. and Novoplansky, A. 2005. Root navigation by self inhibition. Plant Cell & Environment 28: 562-569.
Gruntman M, Novoplansky A. 2004. Physiologically-mediated self/nonself discrimination in roots. PNAS 101: 3863–3867.
Minutes of Lab Meeting 25th August
We had a project meeting on Wednesday 25th August. Pedro, Matt, Titta, Luis, and Fang were present. We all briefly reported on our work progress since the last meeting. We also talked about coming activities.
- Fang and Luis will give posters at the SPPS meeting for PhD students in Espoo next week.
- We will meet with Prof. Gareth Jenkins (Glasgow University), UV researcher at a molecular and signalling level, on Friday 3rd September in the morning in Espoo. (He gives a talk on Thursday afternoon.)
- Pedro had to skip participation in UNEP meeting because he is not fully recovered from the operation in his foot.
- UV4growth COST work groups’ meetings delayed because of delayed signing of contract and start of activities.
- The CEO from a LED lamps company will come and talk with us at 9.00 am on 2nd September about possible collaboration.
- Luis will go to Talin to the Plant Biology meeting. He will not give a presentation, but will report back on what the other groups are doing.
- Prof. Ariel Novoplansky will come during the week of 13-18th September and talk at the seminar series on 13th Sept (Monday). We will have a research group dinner with him on Tuesday evening. In preparation for his visit, each of us will read one of his research papers and report back. Some papers to choose from were attached to Matt’s e-mail and for others follow the link. They go on a first come first served basis. http://www.bgu.ac.il/desert_ecology/Novoplansky/hp.htm#publications
- A Czech PhD student called Petra Holišová working with Matt’s collaborators in Brno will visit on an exchange to do some research into stomatal response to coloured light from 18th September (?).
- Matt will give a presentation at a symposium on water relations in Cartagena, Murcia,Spain, during the first week of October.
- Pedro will start teaching for the semester on 6th September – Plant Physiological Ecology.
- Titta will do a pedagogy course and I will do a teacher training course this term.
- Luis will take a student from the lab tech training courses to help him with genen expression and phenolic analysis from October to December.
- We will buy a spectro-radiometer for the group.
- Pedro and Fang will make another light source for the GSF now, and another two or three a little bit later. We will build a blue light source (435 nm peak), another RGB source, and a red and a far-red source, and possibly a pure green one later. We will have built at the workshop a nicer skirt/light mixing chamber to put between the LED sources and the cuvette.
Titta’s latest paper is on-line
The reprint of Titta’s latest paper “Seasonal fluctuations in leaf phenolic composition under UV manipulations reflect contrasting strategies of alder and birch trees” by “Titta Kotilainen, Riitta Tegelberg, Riitta Julkunen-Tiitto, Anders Lindfors, Robert B. O’Hara, Pedro J. Aphalo” is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1399-3054.2010.01398.x/pdf, as it has been published on-line in Physiologia Plantarum.
Luis’ paper has been published on-line
Effects of solar UV-A and UV-B radiation on gene expression and phenolic accumulation in Betula pendula leaves
Luis O. Morales, Riitta Tegelberg, Mikael Brosché, Markku Keinänen, Anders Lindfors and Pedro J. Aphalo
The abstract and link to the pdf are on-line.
Minutes of Lab Meeting 9th March 2010
In attendance: Pedro, Matt, Fang, Titta.
Section 1: Agenda
1. We will have one student for Summer Practicals working with Matt, Pedro, and Fang: Her name is Noora Imberg.
We will try to meet with her on Thursday 11th March to establish a timetable for her work which suits everyone, place for her to work, and reading list etc.
She will have the opportunity to use the laptop in Matt’s office if neccessary.
2. Conferences and Meetings
Fang is attending the 2nd half of her course in Turku on 10-11th March.
She will present her paper on Stomatal Control (see below)
Pedro is attending the inaugural COST UV4growth meeting in Brussels
Away6-8th April. Matt will cover the Ecosystem Ecology Lecture (Plant Communities and Ecosystems).
Pedro is attending the BES PEP group meeting on the 26-28th April.
Matt (26th 27th) and Fang (28th) will cover for him on the Ecosystem Ecology practical course with the students.
Matt is attending COST EU-Beech final meeting in Burgos, Spain:
Co-author / author presenter of 5-6 papers (posters or orals), and on the scientific/organising committees.
Away 28th April – 11 May – will do some field and lab work whilst away at the site in La Rioja and at INIA in Madrid.
We will also look at the possibility of attending the BES annual meeting in Leeds and UNEP meetings in Lancaster at the same time in early September 2010 – watch for BES abstract submission deadline.
3. Papers: Published, Submitted, Rejected.
Titta’s GCB paper (will query this) and Physiologia Plantarum paper (to be resubmitted), Luis’ Tree Physiology paper (minor comments), Matt’s submission to Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Pedro submitted a paper on effects of boron.
4. Titta’s thesis, and Viva. – May 7th will take place in Jyväskylä. Travel arrangements should be made individually, but let Titta know if you are planning to attend to get details of the event. If going on the train, with Pedro and Nigel (Will Nigel give a seminar?), tickets should be bought well in advance to get the best deal. Otherwise, can think about car pooling..?
We will plan for some practice questions for Titta, at her convenience.
5. Selection of paper for Journal Discussion group.
The paper selected is by Ariel Novoplansky’s Group:
Falik, O.; Reides, P.; Gersani, M. & Novoplansky, A. Self/non-self discrimination in roots Journal of Ecology, 2003, 91, 525–531
Details available on this blog
If you feel keen, you can also read the sister paper which gives a more upto data synthesis of this work.
Discussion will take place on Tuesday 23rd March in the seminar group 5th floor of Biocentre 3 at 12:30.
6. Suggestions for additional participation in the group? Meetings, Journal Discussion
We will invite Rachael Strickman (and associates?). The attendees at Heikki Haninnen’s seminar series. And Noora, of course.
Section 2: Business arising form the previous group meeting.
– Fang gave a practice of her presentation for Turku. “Stomatal Response to Environmental Stress”. Which was well received and discussed.
– Sari’s presentation of her phenolic results will take place when convenient within the next few months – not on a Tuesday
– Other grants and collaborations to apply for funding? See what is available, in particular for collaborations and visits.
– Summer research plans? Next time. Matt will start most experiments in 2nd week of May. Fang’s research plan is advancing.
Any other business
– Tania de la Rosa may be in Helsinki soon: invite her to give us a presentation
– Pedro will buy some books from Oxford University Press, courtesy of Journal of Experimental Botany
– The group will buy a clamp-stand to hold the camera for photographing the arabidopsis plants for leaf area prior to and following gas exchange measurements.
Next meeting is planned for 12th April at 12:00 noon in the seminar room on the 5th floor of Biocentre 3