Karsts represent hotspots of diversity and endemism, but are under-represented in protected areas and under significant threat. With many species only occurring on a single site, the lack of protection and research means that the loss of each karst represents an incalculable loss of biodiversity. Here we set to review the diversity, biodiversity patterns and biogeography of karst endemic plants of a number of families (Elatostema, Orchidea, Urticaceae, Gesneriaceae) across China and surrounding regions and understand specific aspects of their adaptive ecology. From this we move to reviewing relative threats, and regional prioritorisation for karst flora and discuss mechanisms for the development and implementation appropriate conservation initiatives to secure a better future for China’s karst flora.

The world’s herbaria and other natural history collections house specimens critical to science and society.  In recent years, these collections have begun accelerating the pace of digital data creation for specimen information, and crowdsourcing and citizen science have emerged as highly successful innovations that also increase public science literacy and research sustainability.  This symposium brings together leaders from crowdsourcing platforms used by herbaria to discuss past successes, best practices, and future innovations, as well as organizers of the annual Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections (WeDigBio) Event and citizen science activities at the United States’s National Resource for Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections (iDigBio) to discuss models for global and local partnerships. The inaugural 2015 WeDigBio event brought together thousands of volunteers from >100 countries to transcribe >50,000 specimen labels over four days, and organizers of that event would like to recruit new herbaria to participate from around the world.

Botanic gardens lie at a powerful interface with many important functions: scientific research, horticultural improvement, public outreach, tree conservation, and forest restoration action. Because of their long-term commitment to maintaining and improving a living collection of plants, they are uniquely appropriate for leading conservation and science of trees. This symposium will bring together initiatives pursued by botanic gardens to improve trees and forests around the world. Spanning ex-situ and in-situ programs, the speakers will present their latest activities and insights into securing a place for trees in a rapidly changing and human-dominated world. We promote a forward-looking perspective with engagement in conservation, reintroduction and re-wilding of important and endangered species, especially given climate change scenarios; collection and improvement activities for ex-situ management, especially in terms of conserving and enhancing genetic and phenotypic trait diversity; and innovative approaches to promote discovery and progress in tree science.

Climate change is widely recognized as a significant threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services. The direct and indirect effects of increased temperature, changing rainfall patterns and rising sea levels are expected to significant increase extinction rates for wide range of taxa. It is known that approximately 126 pine species is distributed in the world. Among them, 35 pine species is growing in Asian region. Most of pine species are distributed in Northern Hemisphere. Asia region has been identified as exceptionally vulnerable to climate change due to numerous social, economic and environmental factors. Thus, conservation of pine species is one of major challenge against climate change in Asian region. In a sense, this symposium is interested in all aspects of conservation activities to adapt climate change in Asian region for sharing the experiences and methodologies with stakeholders in Asian region as well as in global.

The effects of global change on rare, endangered, and endemic plant species are highly variable, including geographic range shifts as well as changes in relative species abundance, phenology, and other ecological aspects of their biotic communities. Nowadays, global change including human-induced environmental changes are accelerating rapidly, and many rare plant species, discrete populations, and whole species assemblages are now threatened with extinction. Reintroduction and management of rare and endangered plant species has major implications not only for the practice of ecological restoration but also for conservation and the sustainability use of natural resources. The proposed symposium will provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge among researchers and practitioners of rare plant reintroduction and management under global change. In addition, the proposed symposium will also provide a detailed interpretation of the new guidelines for plant reintroduction among different stakeholders and international organizations.

The East-Southeast Asia region, currently rich in biodiversity, has experienced rapid urbanisation and improved socioeconomic conditions, but has suffered the greatest loss in species diversity compared to any tropical region over the last 50 years. As urban development replaces native or remnant habitat, resources in the surrounding areas are depleted to support urban economies causing biodiversity loss. However, in urban environments, insects such as bees and butterflies, continue to offer important benefits to humans, especially pollination of plants which contributes to improved well-being and productivity. Studies of urban ecology have suggested city parks can be effective beneficial insect refuges in temperate regions, but their effectiveness as refuges for beneficial insects in East-Southeast Asia regions is unknown. Management schemes and techniques for conserving beneficial insects in urban parks are well- established in temperate countries but are currently lacking for tropical countries. Moreover, it remains to be seen which planting schemes that can be effective in improving the ability of urban parks to sustain populations of beneficial insects in East-Southeast Asia cities.

There are currently more than 1700 gene banks in the world today, all dedicated to ex situ conservation of plant diversity. Most of these are seed banks applying conventional storage protocols in which seeds are placed in a freezer at -20C. Such conservation efforts hinge on seed survival following extreme desiccation.  However, seed responses to drying vary considerably among species, and those species producing seeds that are intolerant to desiccation (i.e., ‘recalcitrant’ response) are excluded from most seed banking programs.  This seed trait, exhibited in several palms and cycads, and many tree species, is most frequent in tropical rainforests, a habitat that is both under threat from deforestation and home to about half the world’s flowering plants.  Hence, there is an urgent need for non-conventional methods to preserve diversity of tropical plants.  Alternative, innovative approaches use ultra-low temperature (i.e., cryopreservation).  Another group of tropical and subtropical species produce seeds that tolerate partial drying but tend to age rapidly under conditions used in conventional seed banks. These species include important commodities (e.g., coffee, neem, tea), fruits (e.g., citrus, papaya) and ornamentals (e.g., orchids, Anthurium). Cryopreservation is also the only option to preserve diversity of these species. The purpose of this symposium is to explore current understanding of the factors that contribute to successful seed and tissue cryopreservation such as control of intracellular water relations, permeation of cryoprotective chemicals and retention of cell structural integrity. Using case studies on tropical biodiversity, the importance of multidisciplinary approaches that combine biochemistry, biophysics, microscopy will be highlighted and areas for future research needs will be identified.

The changing patterns of land use, and of natural resource use, have brought in such serious and rapid threats to plant diversity that we are running out of time to record and document what the planet earth has. Despite over two centuries of plant exploration, fresh surveys are adding many more new species to the list suggesting that we need to hasten our efforts in collecting, describing and documenting the yet to be known plants. The traditional method of collecting and describing species over these centuries, has resulted in a vast body of global data sets that has been aptly termed as information explosion leading to a crisis of handling it. This crisis of information handling has been effectively addressed by the newly emerging field of biodiversity informatics. Rapid developments in this field have offered fresh opportunities to compile, retrieve and process the large distributed databases of biodiversity, and, to link them with wide range of GIS, remote sensing, and, web based analytical tools.

The symposium plans to invite experts from international organizations, such as Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Encyclopedia of Life, regional organizations, such as International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity, Asia Biodiversity Conservation Database Network, and from national institutions, to review the progress of biodiversity informatics, and mapping of plants at global, regional and national level with a special focus in Asia. During the symposium, participants will share the skills and experiences in management and analysis of large datasets of species-occurrences, biological traits, specimens, and images, as well as mapping of plants of Asia. The discussions are expected to provide means and strategies for the cooperation in a specific effort of Mapping Asian Plants (MAP) and associated biodiversity informatics projects.

The biodiversity of Brazilian ecosystems represents 10-20% of the total number of species worldwide, and, therefore, Brazil is acknowledged as the most biologically diverse country on the planet. Brazilian Flora is constituted of  over 5,000  plant species, representing 22% of World Flora. Protected areas are fundamental for Flora Conservation Strategies, and Brazil has an important legal instrument for protection on private land, known as Private Natural Heritage Reserves (RPPNs). These Reserves are included in the Brazilian National Protected Areas System (SNUC), complementing the role of public protected areas and  integrated into Protected Area Mosaics. Nowadays, in Brazil,  in all  states and, specifically,  in 650 municipalities, there are 1,351 RPPNs protecting over 715,000 hectares. Brazilian RPPNs are fundamental to the conservation of ecosystems in all Brazilian Biomes: Amazonia - Atlantic Forest - Caatinga (Semi-Arid Vegetation) -Cerrado (Brazilian Savannas)- Pantanal (Wetlands)–Pampa (Natural Grasslands).This Symposium will  focus on the Conservation of Flora in the RPPNs in the   Atlantic Forest Biome, one of the most important hotspots in the world, where 72% of the RPPNs have  been  created.  Botanical research in the RPPNs has  revealed high flora diversity as well as the presence of endangered species populations and discovery of new species. In the Symposium, several case studies and data will be presented  on the  flora richness in the  RPPNs, conservation of endangered species in situ, and new flora species discovered in these reserves, already published in Atlantic Forest Biosphere Reserve publications and presented in several scientific events, such as Latin American and Brazilian Botanical Congresses.

Plant diversity is essential to human wellbeing and survival, and yet more than 80,000 plant species (20% of the total) are threatened with extinction. This threatened plant diversity will be critical for solving some of this centurys major challenges in the areas of food security, energy, water scarcity, human health, climate change and habitat degradation. Botanic gardens and arboreta offer the opportunity to conserve and manage a wide range of plant diversity ex situ, and in situ in the broader landscape. The rationale that botanic gardens have a major role to play in preventing plant species extinctions is based on the following two assumptions:There is no technical reason why any plant species should become extinct. Given the array of ex situ and in situ conservation techniques employed by the botanic garden community we can avoid species extinctions.As a professional community, botanic gardens possess a unique set of skills that encompass finding, identifying, collecting, conserving and growing plant diversity across the entire taxonomic spectrumFollowing the example of the crop conservation community, a botanic garden-centred Global System for the conservation and management of all plant diversity will aim to collect, conserve, characterise and cultivate samples from all of the worlds plants as an insurance policy against their extinction in the wild and as a source of plant material for human innovation, adaptation and resilience.The global network of ca. 2,600 botanic gardens includes: living collections representing at least one third of known plant diversity; world class seed banks, glass houses and tissue culture infrastructures, and; technical knowledge networks covering all aspects of plant conservation. However, better co-ordination and more investment will be required to build a Global System that can prevent species extinctions in perpetuity. This session will make the case for a cost-effective and rational approach to plant conservation, and will give examples of this approach in action.

Does successful, sexual recombination in plant species always decline as their populations become smaller and  fragmented due to environmental and/or anthropogenic stress?  Do  pollinators of endangered species always decline or become extinct as these plant populations decline?  Does directional selection favor small populations that persist by changing breeding systems from self-incompatible to self-compatible changing gene frequencies? How can institutions manage and increase reproductive success of endangered species in remaining habitats based on current ecological and genetic information? We propose a symposium on these topics with approximately half the speakers from Chinese institutions. There is now a lot of information on pollination in endangered orchid species but we must also include speakers familiar with reproductive ecology in endangered eudicots and woody plants including tropical trees.

One of the most uncommon and understudied, but among the most fascinating interactions between animals and plants, is the pollination of flowers by non-flying mammals. Animals involved mainly include marsupials, primates and rodents. Although this phenomenon was discovered in the beginning of the 20th century, only in the last few years evidence accumulated that plants evolved specific traits in adaptation to pollinating non-flying mammals. Such plants are found in several different plant families on different continents, mainly in Southern Africa and Australia. However, pollination by non-flying mammals is known also from Asia, the Neotropics, tropical Africa and Madagascar. Only recently observation techniques have been improved and non-flying mammal pollination has been discovered for further plant species, regions and animal groups (e.g. elephant-shrews). Nevertheless, research about this intriguing phenomenon is still at an early descriptive stage. This symposium will gather scientists to present and discuss experimental approaches, the importance of floral scent for attracting flower visitors, the behaviour of the flower visitors and their importance for the plants’ reproduction as well as the evolution of the non-flying mammal pollination system.

The aim of this symposium is to highlight the work of the IUCN SSC Freshwater Plant Specialist Group (FPSG) and through this, global priorities for conservation of aquatic and wetland plants, including vascular plants, bryophytes, algae and lichens. The FPSG exists to promote and further the conservation of plant species which are dependent upon wetlands and the habitats upon which they depend, such that any aspect of wetland plant conservation may fall within its remit. Loss and degradation of wetlands has become recognised as one of the areas of greatest concern for conservation as well as for the survival of people worldwide, however few, if any, organisations focus on conservation of wetland-dependent plants even though these are arguably the foundation for most wetland function. This symposium will cover overlooked and poorly understood areas of wetland plant conservation, genera and guilds of wetland plants which are most likely to be vulnerable to climate change and some of the tools available.

In 2001 The Jade Dragon Research Station was established, together with the Lijiang Alpine Botanic Garden, by the Kunming Institute of Botany and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on The Yulong Mountain, near Lijiang in Yunnan.  The concept was to make the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain a focal point and centre for long term interdisciplinary research and conservation biology within alpine zone of the Hengduan Mountain Biodiversity Hotspot.  In 2004 the research station was formally recognised by CAS and the UK Government as the First China UK Joint Scientific Laboratory and it has since been the focus of a wide diversity of international investigations.  The symposium will showcase the botanical research that has resulted so far, ranging from Quaternary paleoecology (Li Cheng Sen, Blackmore and co-workers), to plant phenology and climate change (Salick and Hart), remote sensing and vegetation analysis (Xu, Ahrends and Hollingsworth) and pollination biology (Wang).  The symposium will also review recent developments and investments in scientific facilities at the research station and nearby, including the establishment and enumeration of a 25 hectare permanent monitoring plot following the methodology of the Tropical Forest Science and Forest Global Earth Observatory (CTFS-ForestGEO).  The symposium will also discuss and review the prospects for future research and conservation activities on the Yulong Mountain and the wider Hengduan mountain region.

Inselbergs are often monolithic rock outcrops which are clearly demarcated against their surroundings. Frequently consisting of granite or gneiss they are characterized by large expanses of open rocky slopes. Environmental conditions on inselbergs are harsh (e.g. high rates of insolation, lack of water) leading to their ecological isolation and they thus form terrestrial habitat islands. Inselbergs are centers of diversity for plants possessing particular adaptive traits (e.g. desiccation-tolerance, carnivory). There are large regional differences in species richness and numbers of endemics with Brazil, Madagascar and Australia forming hot spots of diversity. For certain taxa it could be shown that species boundaries are difficult to define because of complex interactions on the population genetic level (e.g. hybridisation). Throughout the world the flora and fauna of inselbergs is highly endangered by negative human impacts such as quarrying, fire and illegal plant collections.

Several plant lineages evolved the ability to obtain carbon from the mycorrhizal fungi in their roots. These mycoheterotrophic plants provide outstanding opportunities for studying convergent evolution (representing at least 47 losses of photosynthesis in land plants, likely far exceeding the number of origins of parasitic plants), plant-microbe interactions (typically they indirectly parasitize green plants through shared mycorrhizal fungi), conservation biology (there are many rare and poorly known lineages), plant morphology and anatomy (unusual reductions in vegetative form; adaptations for plant-fungal interactions; floral modifications), evolution, systematics and phylogeny (e.g., modification, reduction and rate elevation in plastid and other plant genomes), and biogeography (disjunct distributions). Crucial developments in the fields of ecology and evolution have led to significant progress in our understanding of mycoheterotrophic plants. Here we pull together recent insights on these fascinating organisms in an intregrative symposium on their biology.

Ethnobotany is the scientific study of the relationship between people and plants, and ethnopharmacy is a branch of that study. With regards to medicinal plants, these disciplines often focus on the use and preparation of medicinal plants by "ethnic" groups, generally those who are not part of modern society. These studies help scientists to understand how indigenous people harvest, process, and apply these plants for the benefit of the people they serve. Furthermore, there has been an enormous amount of resources supporting this effort both because of the pressures from modernization and global climate change are reducing the areas in which these people live and the numbers of people themselves, as well as an increased interest in the search for new chemical sources of pharmaceutical drugs. While the traditional techniques used in these disciplines remain of vital importance, modern ethnobotany and ethnopharmacy use a range of emerging techniques including those used in molecular pharmacognosy. In this session we will discuss the importance of traditional research techniques in the field and how emerging techniques are being used to generate new and important information in this field.

Traditional medicine (TM) has been an important source for drug discovery throughout history. This is being increasingly realized today. TM shows advantages in the treatment of chronic and multifactorial diseases, which are now the major threats to human health. This session will review the most important drugs (including artemisinin) discovered from traditional medicines. We will also discuss the hurdles we are currently facing towards the development of traditional medicines into modern drugs, either as single compounds or multi-component mixtures. Particularly, the latest advancements in improving safety, efficacy, and quality consistency of multi-component herbal medicines will be communicated.

This symposium aims to review the current status of drug discovery from traditional medicines, and prospects of this field in the new era.

Plants are a staple in nearly every aspect of human health and well being, from the food we eat to the thousands of medicinal plants used around the world. In 1980 the World Health Organization estimated that approximately 80% of the world's population depended on plants for their primary source of medicine. Although there is little doubt that this percentage has changed over the last 37 years, the resurgence of herbal medicine in many Western countries has increased the number of people using medicinal plants, if not for their primary source of medical care, at least in a complimentary fashion.

Traditional medicinal plants are important resources for Traditional medicines, functional foods and cosmetics, as well as the resources for modern phytotherapies. During the past several years, the herb medicine industry, especially Traditional Chinese Medicine industry has been developing very quickly, and this used up huge amount of traditional medicinal plants. In this session, we will discuss the resources investigation, the protection of wild medicinal plant resources, do-di herbs, the germplasm and breeding, the cultivation and process of medicinal plants. In addition, we will discuss how to develop new products from traditional medicinal plants and how to carry out the sustainable utilization of medicinal plants. The session is designed to review the current state of knowledge of biodiversity, resource and conservation, as well as development and utilization of traditional medicinal plants.

Metabarcoding is a technique for identifying organisms in a mixture. Recent five years have witnessed its extensive applications in microbiology, especially in biodiversity surveys of soil and water, but rarely in plant species. There is a need of this technology in plant sciences as well, for example, pollen or seed flora, temporal dynamics of vegetation, algae identification, etc.. This symposium offers an opportunity for you to introduce your contributions in metabarcoding to botanists.

Protecting biodiversity is a primary task for the modern world, a world that is measurably changing to a warmer condition that has predominated throughout much of global evolution. Modern biologists are working hard to achieve this protection, but can paleontologists make any contribution in this field? The geohistorical record provides a natural laboratory from which we can study the responses of species to environmental changes, and using palaeontological techniques can help us to understand which species will be most sensitive to different kinds and rates of environmental change. For example a comparison of the frequency of insect damage to fossil oak leaves from late Pliocene sediments SW China with those of modern oak leaves suggest Quaternary climate change did not cause extensive extinction of insect herbivores in Sclerophyllous evergreen broad-leaved forests. Finding American endemic Sequoia fossils from SW China indicates a weaker monsoon in the past, and areas today, such as central China and Taiwan that experience moderate seasonal variations in precipitation are areas where Cenozoic relictual genera survive. Understanding past environmental change and the consequences for species distribution will help make suitable and sustainable strategies for conservation. However, in a rapidly changing world conservation has to be forward, not backward looking. Nowhere is change taking place faster than in the Arctic. The composition and dynamics of ancient polar forests are particularly well known despite them representing an extinct ecosystem. Palaeobotany provides a framework, impossible to obtain from any other source, for 'forward conservation' as the ice melts.

This symposium brings together biodiversity, conservation and global change research and will have broad audiences encompassing both paleontology and modern biology and attract contributions from researchers from both fields.

Although occupying only three per cent of the earth’s total surface, Southeast Asia contains 18 percent of the plants and animals assessed by the IUCN. However, despite its endowment with rich biodiversity, Southeast Asia remains under-studied in plant diversity. More prominently, it is experiencing fast biodiversity loss in the global context due to the need of economic development from the growing population. It is in urgent need to carry out intensive field survey, to document the undiscovered plant diversity and to evaluate the threats on biodiversity conservation in the region. This symposium will present the recent progress on the research of plant diversity and address the threats and the status of conservation in SE Asia, which will provide desperately needed information to promote the sustainable management of the biodiversity and environment of the region.

The flora of North America represents regional and global research interests, especially for its roughly 25,000 extant plant species and abundance of well-characterized extinct species. Therefore, this symposium will be devoted to research that is broadly concerned with the assembly and maintenance of biodiversity of the flora of North America, and it will emphasize research outcomes that have implications at large geographic scales, such as at the scale of the continent or of one or more eco-regions. The symposium will be inclusive of plant systematists, ecologists and paleobotanists working on modern or extinct plants and ecosystems. Specific presentations will include those that offer new insights from large taxonomic groups or floras and plant communities and/or those that use methods such as floristics, phylogenetics, ecological modeling, and big data.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean on the planet and it covers an area bigger than those of all continents together. Its numerous islands amount to only a tiny percentage of the total area of the ocean. Pacific archipelagos rank among the most isolated landmasses on the planet and they are characterized by high endemicity of their flora and fauna. Dispersal events in the Pacific region are facilitated by vectors such as tropical storms, birds, floatable seeds and rafting on e.g. driftwood. Successful colonizations of remote Pacific archipelagos are relatively rare events. The founder populations are likely very small so that inbreeding depression plays a big role and many lineages could not establish on the islands. It is noteworthy that the floras of remote Pacific islands are characterized by high levels of polyploidy. The higher number of alleles in a polyploid plant genome might be advantageous to overcome the effects of inbreeding depression.
Despite these difficulties, a number of plant lineages successfully colonized Pacific Archipelagos. Some lineages underwent adaptive radiations on a single archipelago that led to high numbers of species. Most Pacific archipelagos are of volcanic origin and the age of most current islands is usually only a few millions of years. Phylogenetic studies of adaptive radiations in the Pacific were often hampered by these recent origins and resulted in tree topologies with low resolution and support. Next-generation sequencing methods developed in the past years offer exciting opportunities to study the evolutionary history, biogeography, and ecology of adaptive radiations in the Pacific.

The family Ericaceae comprises about 125 genera and more than 4400 species. A highly diverse group of ecologically and economically important woody plants, the Ericaceae includes the charismatic genera Rhododendron and Erica, as well as the economically important cranberry and blueberry.  The family is globally distributed, occurring from about –55° to 85° latitude, and from 0 to 5000m+ in elevation. Ericaceae frequently grow in acidic, nutrient-poor and nitrogen-limiting soils and are dominant elements in cloud forests, heathlands and boreal regions world-wide; their success partly due to their distinctive ericoid mycorrhizae, a type of ectendomycorrhiza in which fungal hyphae form complex intrusions into the exodermal cells of very narrow (“hair”) roots. Major evolutionary radiations have occurred in the Andes, Australasia, the Malesian archipelago, southern Africa, and the Himalayas.

In 2002 a phylogenetic classification of Ericaceae was published, based on combined analysis of matK, rbcL and morphological data for 80 species. Since then, major advances have been made in resolving the phylogenetic relationships within and between some of the major groups, analysing the historical biogeographical relationships, and discovering evolutionary patterns and the underlying processes operating on the group. New genome-scale data are now being collected to address some of the most recalcitrant remaining questions regarding their evolution in time and space.

For the first ~300 million years of plant life on land, Earth’s flora consisted entirely of flagellate plants, which today include approximately 30,000 species of bryophytes, lycophytes, ferns, and gymnosperms. Numerous major innovations, including stomata, vascular tissue, roots, leaves, woody stems, and seeds, evolved first in flagellate plant ancestors. The flagellate plants not only provide a window onto the early evolution of these critical features, but are represented today by vibrant and diverse lineages that contribute substantially to global ecology, particularly via contributions to global carbon and nitrogen cycles. This symposium will present results from several recent, large-scale analyses of phylogeny and evolution in the flagellate plants. These studies aim to link phylogeny with biogeographic, fossil, and morphological data, as well as information on sexuality and other life history characters, in order to address gaps in our understanding of the tree of life and develop a comprehensive evolutionary framework for the flagellate plants.  Our speakers represent a diverse group of institutions and countries, and will present insights into the evolution and diversification of large and significant groups of flagellate plants including cycads, ferns, and bryophytes. In addition to presenting new insights on relationships and evolutionary processes within these lineages, our speakers will address how new methods have facilitated these advances, and discuss outstanding questions in flagellate plant research to be addressed in coming years.

The evolutionary consequences of hybridization, and more specifically distinguishing hybridization and introgression from incomplete lineage sorting (ILS), are one of the most prevalent topics in phylogenetic analysis. Yet, it is one on which progress made has been modest during the last two decades. Since the early 1990s and the realization of the main forces causing gene-trees to differ from organisms trees (paralogy, ILS, horizontal transfer), the most commonly used approach, in addition to independent direct evidence for hybridization, has been detecting incongruence between differently inherited gene trees from the same organisms. However, this criterion does not always constitute conclusive evidence. Besides, conceptual advances have sometimes limited the validity of assumptions from previously used criteria. For instance, the main hint for hybridization over ILS, besides the current sympatry or geographic proximity between involved species, was that unlike hybridization ILS should affect genes differently because it is a stochastic process. Thus, a concordance in topological patterns across different genes should point towards hybridization. However, discoveries of genome evolution such as its porous nature, whereby not all parts of the genomes are equally introgressed, suggest that when there is introgression all gene trees need not be consistent in their topological patterns.  On the other hand, the availability of genome-wide surveys and specifically NGS data as well as the development of coalescent-based phylogenetic approaches have brought new possibilities to tackle the problem. Because basically ILS continues to be the explanation left when hybridization or introgression cannot be documented, new approaches most frequently aim at detecting similarities among species that would be not be expected by chance even in a coalescent scenario. Some of those new approaches have proved useful in simulation and empirical studies of limited size but all need more empirical testing.

The hypothesis of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution (KTR) was established based on observations of the well-studied fossil record of terrestrial tetrapods. The period between 120-80 Ma is distinguished not only by the fact that terrestrial species diversity exceeded the marine diversity for the first time but also for the rise of angiosperms to become the land plant lineage dominating nearly all terrestrial habitats. Thus, the success of angiosperms has arguably caused the re-organization of the trophic networks in terrestrial environments that resulted in the decline, rise, or replacement of various branches of the tree of life including other lineages of land plants such as ferns and liverworts. This symposium aims to elucidate the evidence and main results discovered in the research on botanical aspects of the KTR with particular emphasise on the impact on the green branch of the tree-of-life such as the diversification of derived ferns in the shadow of angiosperms and the success of epiphytic leafy liverworts in the context of the fossil record, divergence time estimates, and plant physiology. By doing so, this symposium summarises not only the recent progress in our understanding of the diversification of land plants in the late Mesozoic but also informs on ecological and evolutionary consequences of the KTR.

Mimicry is a fascinating aspect of communication between plants and herbivores as well as between flowers and pollinators. Mimicry systems have three protagonists, model, mimic and signal receiver. Mimicry in plants covers the imitation of galls and mines to deter gall-forming, resp. mining insects as well as the imitation of green leaves and other structures deter herbivores. Flower mimicry is a multifaceted phenomenon in the context of attraction of pollinators and includes the imitation of rewarding flowers by non-rewarding as well as by reading flowers, fake nectar, pollen and stamens, sexual deception, imitation of brood substrates, and false seeds and fruits. Recently, magnet effects, signal standardization, sensory bias and sensory exploitation have been identified as related phenomena. The symposium is intended to bring together researchers about mimicry in plants in order to introduce new plant mimicry systems, to share results of experimental tests with the deceived pollinators and to discuss the benefits and cost of the protagonists in plant mimicry systems. The benefits of plant mimicry systems are not easily evident and include saving the costs for producing of rewards, manipulation of the pollinators fight distance towards the next flowers, filtering among flower-visitors and selection of reliable pollinators.

Floras are an authoritative summation of taxonomic knowledge for a given region at a given time. Traditionally Floras are books, but because of the considerable time and resources required to compile and produce a Flora, these books are often out of date as soon as the Flora is printed. Developments in biodiversity informatics make it now possible to use different approaches to create Floras, and worldwide there are numerous “next generation Flora” projects underway. These range from digitisation of existing Floras to development of novel information systems that replace or extend traditional Floras. Such systems variously include tools to address different parts of the Flora writing process from accumulating and synthesising data through to generating products to meet specific audience needs. These new approaches substantially change the way in which we can both construct and manage Floras, and make our knowledge widely available and accessed. It may also, at least potentially, substantially change the way we do our work, and think about our information, its management, and the ways in which we can help our users. This symposium will explore some of the implications of the eFlora platform for taxonomy, systematics, and the world by discussing experiences from different regional “next generation Flora” projects such as the eFlora platform for Australasia or the eFlora of New Zealand project.

Polyploidy has long been recognized as an evolutionary process in plant genome evolution.  Since the last International Botanical Congress, there has been an explosion of genomic and genetic studies that have demonstrated that whole genome duplications have occurred much more often than previously suspected in lineages of plants and animals. Given this recognition of widespread paleopolyploidy, new questions and research opportunities appear about the consequences of ancient genome doubling. What are the patterns and processes associated with paleopolyploidy? As polyploid genomes return to a diploid state over time, to what degree are there common patterns of gene and network evolution across taxa, and to what degree is each lineage a special divergent case? Despite the enormous datasets now available, polyploid genome evolution remains highly controversial. Indeed, numerous theories have been put forth that cover an extreme range of alternatives: polyploidy is adaptive and drives diversification, polyploidy is detrimental and lead to evolutionary dead-ends, and polyploidy is largely a neutral phenomena. In this symposium, experts from across the globe confront these and related issues using an array of bioinformatic approaches.  Collectively, we aim at several levels of synthesis.  First, we integrate wide surveys of polyploidy across the tree of life with deep investigations on the functional consequences of genome doubling in model organisms. Second, we investigate a range of macro-evolutionary and micro-evolutionary phenomena while examining the tempo and mode of paleopolyploidy and neopolyploidy.

Zingiberales Symposium

Zingiberales is a well-defined monophyletic plant order of predominantly tropical and subtropical plants. It includes eight plant families (Cannaceae, Costaceae, Heliconiaceae, Lowiaceae, Marantaceae, Musaceae, Strelitziaceae and Zingiberaceae) and over 3000 species. Considerable number of species is of economic importance as spices, medicinal plants, fruits and vegetables, dyes, ornamentals and others. Zingiberales have been extensively studied over the last two decades with progress on taxonomy and nomenclature, phylogeny, morphology, ecology, pollination biology, pharmacology, and other fields. With new approaches, the advancement of knowledge is rapid. The International Botany Congress (2017) therefore provides an excellent platform for researchers from the whole world to meet, discuss and exchange new information on Zingiberales derived from multiple approaches on various aspects of the Ginger order.

A lot of recent information on biodiveristy and phylogeograhy of bryophytes have appeard the last few years. This symposium aims to summarize some of the more important findings to make it a takeoff for the future development. It aims to look both into the biodiversity and biodiveristy hot spots of bryophytes and to the phylogeographic pattern forming the currently existing distribution patterns. Recently demonstrapted amphi-antlantic patterns in bryophytes, and the relation between south-east Asia and Macaronesia are examples of biogeographic patterns that just emerged from recent studies.

Begonia contains 1820 species and is amongst the world’s largest angiosperm genera. The genus has a pantropical distribution, characterised by extremely high rates of narrow endemism. The distribution of Begonia species richness is representative of rainforest diversity generally, being markedly greater in the Neotropics and tropical Asia, and suggests the family is a good proxy for investigating tropical diversification. Much of the research into the generation of large-scale patterns of tropical diversity has focused on trees, however herbaceous layer genera such as Begonia represent an ecologically contrasting aspect of tropical vegetation and need to be included if we are to have a complete understanding of tropical ecosystems. The prevalence of Begonia across the tropics suggests a highly successful strategy in exploiting the niches available to tropical herbs. In order to understand the generation of such a large radiation, we need insights into the interplay of niche evolution, physiology and genome evolution, building on the foundations of a sound taxonomy and robust phylogenetic hypotheses. Preliminary phylogenetic hypotheses for Begonia have been constructed, based on a small number of genome regions. Insights from next generation approaches need to be explored to show us what extent these represent species trees in the light of data on hybridisation and organelle capture. In addition we need to understand the degree of niche differentiation between species with respect to both phylogeny and genomic evolution. In this symposium we aim to bring together a variety of disciplines to give insight into the evolution of Begonia diversity, drawing on recent advances in research of niche evolution, genome dynamism, reproductive biology, photosynthetic physiology, biogeography, and management of biodiversity data. The building of a synthetic picture of evolution in the mega-diverse genus Begonia has the potential to provide a template for understanding broader patterns tropical herbaceous diversity.

The origin and early evolution of land plants is a major episode of Earth history. The consequences were far-reaching, and through their interactions with the environment, plants and associated organisms had a broad impact on Earth Systems. Our current understanding of the plant colonization relies on two key lines of evidence – (1) calibrated phylogenetic trees and (2) direct fossil evidence – which provide conflicting scenarios and lack precision. We address these issues through integration of new data, methods and approaches from several disciplines: genomics, state-of-the-art phylogenetic models, novel approaches to tree calibration and a synthesis of fossil evidence from Euramerica and China. Our newly developed and more precise timeframe is used as a framework to explore the consequences for plant evolution and for the assembly of terrestrial ecosystems.

The grass family, with more than 12,000 species, is economically and ecologically important throughout the world.  Based on insights from molecular data, the family has benefited from a major reclassification at the subfamily level, and a substantial new understanding has emerged on the evolutionary history of many major lineages (i.e., supertribes, tribes, subtribes, and genera).  As a consequence, realignments at generic, tribal and other ranks are being proposed in the production of new classifications that reflect phylogenetic history, a trend that is showing no signs of slowing down as levels of taxon and genome sampling increase. Phylogenetic analyses of whole plastid  genomes are now routinely contributing to knowledge of grass evolutionary history and studies using low-copy nuclear genes are increasing in frequency. Many of these studies have identified webs of complex relationships and we believe a symposium covering large taxonomic groups (a single genus to the subfamily level) will help illuminate the nature, frequency, and distribution of these problems in the grass family. This symposium will bring together researchers working on the evolutionary history of major grass lineages in different subfamilies, including but not limited to the Bambusoideae, Chloridoideae, Panicoideae and Pooideae, who will present emerging molecular-based results on our changing understanding of the limits of grass genera and tribes. We hope to stimulate discussion of different molecular approaches to exposing and untangling reticulate origins, and present the current state of systematic knowledge within these taxonomic groups.

Bryophytes, including liverworts, mosses and hornworts, are the second largest group of land plants after flowering plants, and are fundamental in our understanding of early land plant evolution. They are components of most terrestrial ecosystems and can even exist in extreme habitats where no other land plants could be found. The tropical and subtropical bryophytes of Asia are of particular interest as the enormous biodiversity has constantly revealed new discoveries, while on-going inventory work are expected to find even more in the future despite the rapid loss of natural habitats. These have significant implications in our understanding of various expects in bryological research, including morphology, taxonomy, biogeography, ecology, phylogenetics and evolution etc. Innovative applications of bryophytes, such as discovery of novel chemicals, application of natural bioactive compounds, use of bryophytes as bioindicators etc., are attempted because of the species, ecological, physiological, chemical, and molecular diversities found in bryophytes. This symposium will focus on the bryological research of Asia, where research on various aspects in bryology is wanting but emerging in recent years. Twelve talks in two sections will be arranged for this symposium, including but not limiting to all the above mentioned research fields, so long that the main focus is on at least partial species and material from Asian bryophytes.

Our knowledge of Apocynaceae has been greatly enhanced since the first Apocynaceae symposium at the IBC in St. Louis (1999). Since then, every IBC has given an impulse to research in the family, especially enabling discussion between researchers from all parts of the world. While the general phylogenetic structure of the family is now mostly undisputed, the biology of the species, the influences of biotic and abiotic factors for speciation, and the role of the species in their environments are still largely unknown.  The proposed symposium assembles researchers from all parts of the world, working on different subfamilies, and on a variety of questions elucidating different aspects of biogeography, niche occupation, and evolutionary change in members of the family. Talks will cover all major subfamilies and will shed light on the drivers of evolution in the group.

Impressive advances have been made over the last twenty years to unravel the genes underlying the strikingly conserved floral general organisation, besides the extraordinary variation in size, shape, colour and number of floral organs. Evo-devo (evolutionary developmental biology) studies have shown that this conservation is due to a shared genetic program (the ABC model) responsible for floral organ identity. Progress has also been made in identifying genes involved in specific floral features, such as for example floral bilateral symmetry. In parallel, phylogenetic relationships among the 400  families of angiosperms have become increasingly resolved, providing a robust framework to study patterns of floral evolution and development, and distinguish conserved from lineage-specific patterns. This symposium will highlight several aspects of current research led on these aspects, on various taxonomic groups. Proposed speakers include Oriane Hidalgo (UK) who will focus on the evolution and development of the capitulum in Asteraceae, Nina Gabarayeva (Russia) who will  zoom on pollen development in a selection of species, Julien Massoni (Zürich) who will present new hypotheses on the evolution of floral structure in Magnoliidae, and Javier Fuertes (Spain) who will address the issue of pseudanthial evolution.

Mangrove is a unique and valuable ecosystem that distributes in the tropical intertidal zone of the world. It enriches the vast biological diversity of not only terrestrial but also marine life and provides significant ecological services to human beings. However, mangrove has been devastated with an alarming rate. Recent studies suggest that 35 – 85 % of mangrove area has already disappeared in the world in the last 25 years. Under this situation, international research groups intensively accumulated knowledge on mangrove evolution in the past decade, regarding phylogeny, conservation genetics and genomics.  In this symposium, we invite speakers who performed prominent studies on both of the two important biogeographic regions for mangroves (Indo-West Pacific (IWP) and Atlantic-East Pacific (AEP)). By sharing ideas and filling knowledge gaps, we aim to reach global and general understandings on the evolution of mangroves.

Bamboos (Poaceae - Bambusoideae) are a globally distributedflagship group of the grass family of major economic, ecological andsocietal importance and especially well known by people of Asia, Africaand Latin America for its innumerable uses in all aspects of their dailylife. Molecular phylogenetic research on bamboos conducted during the lastdecades have profoundly transformed the way we understand theirsystematics, evolution and biogeography. However bamboo research face amajor impediment, their intractable taxonomy due to their peculiarflowering habits. Their nomenclature and taxonomy are far from establishedand a considerable effort is still to be undertaken to allow for acomplete understanding of their classification, relationships and ecologyin the era of phylogenomics.The two symposia proposed here will cover most of the current researchlandscape on bamboos worldwide from their taxonomy to macroecologicalconsiderations and allow researchers to collaborate towards acomprehensive global monographic treatment and interactive identificationkey.

The Compositae (Asteraceae) are the largest and most diverse flowering plant family (ca. 24,000 spp/ 1,700 genera). Members occur worldwide in all but the most extreme habitats, reaching their greatest numbers in arid and temperate regions and on tropical and subtropical mountains. While many species have restricted ranges in areas that are threatened with high extinction rates (i.e., Pacific Islands, Cape Floristic Region, Tibetan Plateau), the family also includes some of the world’s most noxious weeds (i.e., dandelion, ragweed, thistle) some of which cost the billions (in USD) annually. Numerous species produce novel secondary compounds that have many industrial and biomedical uses and others have been domesticated for food. In 2009 a comprehensive book was published that resolved some issues but left many questions unanswered, however, it triggered substantial new research based on new fossil and morpholgoical evidence including phyloginies and character evolution studies based on next generation methods such as gene target enrichment. It has been hypothesized that Compositae originaled in South America and experienced a subsequent explosion in Africa afterward moving across the globe. But details of how members of the family arrived in Africa, and when taxa moved out of Africa to Asia and then reached most parts of the earth are currently being tested with new phylogenies and factors that may drive their evolution are being investigated. Resolving the history of this large and complicated family is critical to our efforts to understand the assembly of global biodiversity. This symposium will bring together the current state of our knowledge on the phylogeny, biogeography and evolution of Compositae and help develop a strategy for future research.

Systematic biology is a discipline rooted in collections, and the discipline has experienced exciting recent developments in bioinformatics and cyberinfrastructure, which are transforming systematics by opening up new opportunities.  The proposed symposium will present strategies for developing systematic biology in the next three decades with speakers from six continents.  Several recently proposed initiatives such as a new global Biodiversity CyberBank, comparable to GenBank for genetic data, to be the repository of all biodiversity data, as well as a World Organization of Systematic Biology to lead major initiatives of the field will be debated and assessed.  We propose to have short presentations of 15 minutes by each speaker, followed by a session of discussions and comments, with a panel discussion at the end of the symposium.

Parasitic plants strictly refer to plants using haustoria to get nutrition from roots or stems of other living plants. Plant parasites can be hemiparasitic (semiparasitic) with photosynthetic leaves (such as mistletoe), or holoparasitic and completely dependent on their host (such as broomrape). Parasitism has been evolved at least 12 times in flowering plants. Around 4500 species, representing 12 orders 27 families, have been recognized as parasitic. Origin of parasitism remains unclear. Meanwhile, some parasitic weeds made disastrous economic damage in agriculture. To enforce research on parasitic plants, International Parasitic Plant Society launches an international conference every two years. In the XIX IBC, we would like to organize a Symposium entitled “Ecology and Evolution of Parasitic Plants”.

Recent studies have demonstrated that fungi are extremely important in all ecosystems and in particular for plants. Based on studies of the endophytic mycobiota, combining classical morphology with modern molecular phylogeny and bioprospecting have revealed an immense, unprecedented mycodiversity. This has led to the discovery of various unprecedented bioactive molecules that could serve well as lead candidates for agrochemical and pharmaceutical development. Fungal endophytes have also raised great interest with respect to their potential utility as candidates for biocontrol agents, biofertilisers, industrial enzyme production, and biofuel producing agents. On the other hand, a combination of morphological, molecular and chemical methodologies also serves well for recognition of newly arising pathogens that are now posing a serious threat to global agriculture, and for in-depth characterization of myxotoxin producing fungi. Regarding basic research, the data generated in the course of modern polythetic taxonomic studies will also serve well as references for molecular ecology studies that aim at identifying the respective fungi in the host plant. In the near future, phylogenomic studies will complement our knowledge on the correlations between salient phenotypic and corresponding genotypic features,.The proposed symposium is designed to attract leading mycologists from around the world, who are working on evolutionary aspects and/ or applied mycology. Aside from the proposers, some other leading research groups such as those of M. J. Wingfield (South Africa), P. W. Crous (Netherlands) and K. D. Hyde (Thailand), and A. Miller (USA) will be asked to contribute .

Evolution of land plants (embryophytes) and their interaction with the environment exerted unparalleled influence on earth environment over the last 500 million years. Advancement in phylogenetics, genomics, development biology, ecology, and paleontology in recent decades has brought unprecedented progress in our understanding of these aspects of plants. In this symposium, we present and review evidence from the above disciplines, attempting to gain an integrated system-wide overview on patterns and tempos of evolution of land plants and their interaction with both biotic and abiotic environments.ORGANIZERS:1) Yin-Long Qiu, University of Michigan, [email protected], chronophylogenetic analysis of land plants; 2) François Lutzoni, Duke University, [email protected], evolution of endophytic and endolichenic fungi and their plant hosts;ADDITIONAL SPEAKERS:3) C. Kevin Boyce, Stanford University, [email protected], character evolution in land plants; 4) Günter Theißen, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, [email protected], MADS-box gene evolution in land plants; 5) Conrad C. Labandeira, Smithsonian Institution, [email protected], animal-plant interaction in the fossil record; 6) Thomas J. Algeo, University of Cincinnati, [email protected], the geological context in which early land plant evolution occurred

Advances in gene sequencing have provided a wealth of genome scale data, making it possible to compile and analyze massive data sets representing all three cellular compartments (nuclear, plastid, and mitochondrial) Phylogenomic scale analyses of large data sets of numerous green plants (Viridiplantae) and subclades therein have yielded unprecedented insights into relationships, character evolution, and the timing of major diversification events.  These studies have clarified crucial phylogenetic relationships across green plants, including the sister group of land plants, relationships within monliophytes, gymnosperms, and angiosperms.  Comparison of nuclear and plastid gene trees also reveal areas of conflict—these are intriguing and may indicate ancient hybridization or lineage sorting events.

Genome size is a key biodiversity character of fundamental ecological and evolutionary significance. For example, it can influence where, when and how plants grow and respond to environmental change and human activities. In recent years, there has been a significant growth of interest in genome size research, so this symposium is timely.

It aims to bring together researchers across the many diverse areas of biology impacted by genome size research (e.g. genomics, epigenetics, phylogenetics, evolution and ecology) and will provide an opportunity for the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas, networking and formation of new collaborations across the breadth of plant genome size research.The symposium will particularly focus on the novel insights now being provided by next generation sequencing (NGS) approaches at both the genomic and epigenetic levels. For example, the combination of NGS with the development of increasingly high sensitive and accurate methods to estimate genome size is opening up new ways to characterise and identify key sequences and processes involved in shaping the genomic landscape across genomes of all sizes.

On a broader scale, the multidisciplinary synthesis of the increasing amounts of genome size data now available are providing critical new insights into the evolutionary and ecological significance of genome size diversity, and these advances will also be covered by the symposium. The four overarching themes that will be addressed by the invited speakers will comprise:

(i) Insights into the genomic and epigenetic mechanisms generating genome size diversity

(ii) The dynamics of genome size at the population level

(iii) Genome size evolution across the plant tree of life

(iv) The role of genome size in a changing world/ecological patterns of genome size

Understanding the drivers of population divergence, speciation and species persistence is of great interest to molecular ecology, especially in the world's biodiversity hotspots. East Asia is one of regions harboring the most diverse temperate and subtropical flora in the world. Although this region has never been directly impacted by extensive and unified ice-sheets, it nonetheless experienced severe environmental change throughout the Late Tertiary and Quaternary with dramatic effects on the evolution and distribution of plants. By using phylogeographic, landscape genetic, and ecological modelling approaches, a steadily increasing number of phylogeographic studies in East Asia have documented the evolutionary web of population demographic, biogeographic, and speciation processes. This symposium will present recent remarkable studies concerning phylogeographic patterns, population demographic/biogeographic histories, speciation processes, as well as drivers of species diversification and persistence that have given rise to one of the world's most diverse floras in East Asia.

The awareness of plant species richness and endemism in Africa is continuing to grow and urges studies on African plant diversity and evolution. Despite that the ‘hot spots’ are already identified, it is imperative to examine the biodiversity and its mechanism both qualitatively and quantitatively. Especially with ongoing global change, these natural areas called for more attentions and practical methods on site-specific protection. In this symposium, issues on endemic plant resources including fundamental record updates such as ‘flora of Kenya’, plant species radiation and diversification, mechanisms of biodiversity and adaptation, etc., are to be revealed and discussed. These efforts would lead more thoughts on the basic as well as applicable studies in Africa, for a better understanding, more feasible conservation, and sustainable use of African plants across the world.

Orchidaceae are the largest family of flowering plants, and have been the focus of countless systematics studies.  The past two decades, in particular, have seen an increase in the number of studies focused on phylogeny reconstruction at all taxonomic levels in the orchids - from family to subfamily, tribe, subtribe, and genus.  These have come from collaborating researchers around the world.  Furthermore, in just the past few years the orchid community has begun to embrace next generation DNA sequencing, and made use of the numerous orchid plastomes and genomes that have been published.   This symposium of distinguished international orchidologists will profile the diversity of orchid systematics research currently being investigated around the world, with a focus on phylogeny and classification.  Orchids inspired Charles Darwin as he developed his theory of evolution by natural selection, and continue to intrigue biologists interested in understanding the patterns of processes of plant speciation.

The 'petaloid monocot' orders Liliales and Asparagales contains some of the most diverse and showy lineages of flowering plants such as the families Orchidaceae, Iridaceae, Alliaceae, & Liliaceae.  They are worldwide is distribution, have adapted to nearly all terrestrial biomes on Earth, and continue to inspire evolutionary biologists.  The taxonomy and classification of these monocots has received considerable attention during the past 20 years, and systematists are now considering aspects of their biology include genomics, historical biogeography, and plant-animal-fungal interactions, among others, in a robust phylogenetic context.  The international speakers in this symposium will present contemporary research on the diversity and evolution of genera and families within Liliales and Asparagales.

An organism’s choice to reproduce with or without sex has long puzzled evolutionary biologists. Apomixis, a natural form of reproduction in plants whereby seeds are produced asexually, has evolved repeatedly from sexual ancestors in many species.  Apomixis is of interest on a number of levels, ranging from population genetics to evolution, but also from an applied perspective, as it represents a disruptive technology which could significantly change agricultural practices (e.g. fixing heterosis in hybrid crops). The goal of this symposium is to bridge our understanding of the evolution of naturally-occurring asexual plants, the identification of genetic factors responsible for asexuality, and the application of these factors to crop plants.

In recent decades the role of interactions among different branches of the Tree of Life in generating and maintaining biological diversity has been increasingly appreciated by ecologists and evolutionary biologists. Pollination interactions between angiosperms and many different animal clades (including insects, birds, and bats) are one of the most visible and pervasive ecological interactions on land, and likely play an important role in generating and maintaining terrestrial biodiversity. Furthermore, the diversity of pollinators and their interactions with plants is of considerable importance to human economic activity as well as to ecosystem function. In this symposium, we bring together a group of speakers from inside and outside China focused on addressing both the evolutionary and ecological sides of this issue. On the evolutionary side, several of our speakers address both the considerable evidence for the role of pollinators in driving angiosperm speciation and macroevolutionary change across the angiosperm phylogeny. On the ecological side, we highlight the dynamics of hyper-diverse plant-pollinator assemblages across time and space, and the manner in which the ecology of these interactions may maintain or otherwise affect patterns of species diversity. Our goal in this symposium is to work towards a more integrated understanding of the role of pollination interactions in the origins and maintenance of plant diversity.

Ranunculaceae is a large, globally distributed family that consists of around 1,800 species in about 50 genera. The family has been the focus of centuries of morphological, anatomical, systematic, evolutionary, and phytochemical studies owing to its unusual position in the angiosperm phylogeny, enormous diversity in reproductive and vegetative structures, and wide ornamental and medical uses. In particular, flowers in this family vary greatly in the shape, size, color and function, which represent a good example of plasticity of floral development. Therefore, the family has been explored and is emerging as a new model to address the Evo-Devo questions concerning flowers and floral organs, such as the mechanisms underlying floral organ identity determination, floral phyllotaxy, origination of new characters, and sexual differentiation, as well as their effects on adaption, radiation and speciation. So far, substantial achievements have been made in several aspects of the field. To strengthen the collaborations among research groups, and promote the research of this field to a new level, we will open a symposium on Ranunculaceae and the Evo-Devo of the flower, as one of the topics of the theme II: Taxonomy, Phylogenetics & Evolution of the congress.

Polyploidy is a key evolutionary phenomenon, particularly in plants. It is essentially a hyper-mutation, affecting every aspect of the genome. Autopolyploidy, defined in strictest sense, duplicates every gene and regulatory element in a genome, whereas at the other extreme a classic allopolyploid merges two already diverged genomes, “duplicating” shared (orthologous) genes and regulatory sequences but also bringing together lineage-specific genes, transposable elements, promoters, enhancers, and other regulatory elements. The complexity created at the time of genome duplication or merger is further enhanced during the early generations of the polyploid’s existence, the period of genomic and transcriptomic shock, in which genetic and epigenetic change appears to be particularly rapid. Depending on the species, accelerated change may be due to genome duplication or to merger of diverged genomes, or to both; in some allopolyploids the two processes may work in opposite directions, one amplifying changes, the other muting them. The early “shock” phase can be considered the first step in diploidization, the long term process in which chromosome behavior, gene expression, gene content, and genome size and structure in a polyploid evolve to become more like a diploid. Because many of the same phenomena can occur during divergence followingthe formation of any species, diploidization can obscure the effects of the earliest stages of polyploidy. Synthetic and early-stage natural polyploids provide a valuable window on the unstable early stages of polyploid evolution, demonstrating what changes can be generated by polyploidy, though they cannot identify which mutations will persist over time. This symposium will highlight studies of relatively early stages of polyploidy in both natural and artificial polyploids.

Over the past few years, the field of orchid pollination greatly benefited from advances in microscopical, molecular, chemical and sensory techniques. By applying micro CT scanning to extinct insects preserved in amber carrying orchid pollinia, new orchid fossils continue to be detected. Vascular bundles detected in complex structures such as the gynostemium shed more light on the evolutionary origin of specialised organs involved in orchid pollination such as the rostellum and stelidia. DNA barcoding of extant insects caught in the field and carrying pollinia enables a much faster identification of pollinator guilds of especially tropical orchids. Fullly sequenced orchid genomes provide more insight in the molecular basis of pollinator attraction. Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry of floral fragrances, coupled to electro-antennography, and maps of olfactory receptors in the neural system of pollinators and their behavior help with the identification of key signals for pollinator attraction. The overall picture emerging from all these studies is that major radiations in the orchids evolved multiple times in parallel with specific pollinator guilds on different continents.

The family Leguminosae (Fabaceae) is the third largest angiosperm family in terms of species richness with c. 770 genera and over 19,500 species. In ecological and economic terms the family is also one of the most important plant groups of the world and it has been recently the focus of numerous taxonomic, phylogenetic and evolutionary studies. The classical and long standing three subfamilies classification has been reviewed by the international Legume Phylogenetic Working Group, and a new system including a six-subfamilies classification has been proposed. Additionally, increasing efforts on phylogenomics studies revealed multiple whole genome duplication within legumes, that along with the new NGS data available is contributing to our understanding of the family phylogeny, diversification and evolution. This symposium will invite 6 leading botanists to introduce the most recent achievement in phylogenomics and evolution of legumes.

Hybrid capture, bait capture or targeted enrichment, is a technology increasingly used to resolve issues where PCR amplicon sequencing provides too little information, and genome or transcriptome sequencing too much.  RNA baits designed from a known list of genes are used to select target sequences from a sequencing library before sequencing.  This has the benefits of maximising data return for sequencing costs, choice of known sequences, and great flexibility as to the quality and quantity of input DNA.  Several protocols have been published for use in plants, and bait sets designed for a range of groups from species level to family level across angiosperms are been published or are in progress.  Data can be used for fine-scale or deep-level phylogenetics, population genetics or comparative sequence analysis. This symposium provides a forum for researchers developing this technology to exchange ideas, discuss progress and formulate wet lab and bioinformatics protocols.

Magnoliaceae are among the three most diverse families in Magnoliales, with relevant implications in systematics, horticulture, and conservation.  For over a century , Magnoliaceae have served as a model in angiosperm evolution research. Their ancient Cretaceous history, vast tricontinental fossil record, and mostly barochory-limited dispersal make them suitable for understanding diversification, biogeography and early evolution of flowering plants. Solving puzzling relationships among major clades and dating phylogenies within a historical climatic and geographical context should increase our comprehension of enigmatic biogeographical events such as their origin (whether temperate or tropical) or their early colonization pathways; and their fascinating macroevolutionary processes including trait shifts from spiral-tepals to cyclic-petals and sepals, from apocarpous to syncarpia and from archaic beetle to non-beetle pollinated flowers. This section of XIX IBC on the family will update and convey knowledge in systematics, elucidating aspects of macro and microevolutionary processes and add to the synthesis of biogeographical and evolutionary theory.

Despite the great progress in molecular phylogenetics of basal monocots, many aspects of their morphological evolution remain unclear. Resolving this issue is important for understanding general aspects of origin and evolution of monocots. The early divergent monocot order Alismatales is remarkable in high structural diversity of its members and strong homoplasy in evolution of many characters, especially those related to adaptations to aquatic habitats. The symposium is aimed in a comprehensive analysis of various macro- and micromorphological traits in basal monocots. Confirmed speakers are D.D. Sokoloff (Moscow, Russia), S.R. Yadav (Kolhapur, India), E.E. Severova (Moscow, Russia) and T.D. Macfarlane (Perth, Australia). Their presentations will include a general review of morphological diversity of core Alismatales with emphasis on the recently discovered parallelism in evolution of three-dimensional leaf venation between aquatic Aismatales and succulents of the eudicot order Caryophyllales; a study of morphological and developmental diversity of Aponogetonaceae with emphasis on enormous variation in embryo morphology; new data on pollen morphology and sporoderm development in key members of Alismatales and a study of an Australian group of Potamogetonaceae that inhabits a range of aquatic habitats of different salinity and shows evolution of dioecy and considerable diversity of leaf, inflorescence and floral characters.

Oligocene and Neogene fossil floras scattered across Asia provide important data for assessing responses to changing topography and climate. Since about 34 million years ago, the effects of rising mountains, oscillations of climate, and correlated changes in sea level have influenced development of the modern spatial pattern of plant diversity. Fossil records of particular taxa and locations are key to understanding the patterns of plant migration, radiation, and extirpation, which have shaped present-day phytogeographic patterns in the northern hemisphere. The Oligocene carpoflora of South China includes mainly tropical and subtropical elements, well preserved fruits of Anacardiaceae, Burseraceae, Elaeocarpaceae, etc., which have close affinities to the local extant taxa with particular distribution patterns, providing significant implications on the paleoclimate and phyto-geographic history for the taxa. Although floristic composition during the Neogene was quite comparable to that nowadays in Asia, many taxa subsequently became extinct or endemic to Asia. During recent years, many new fossil floras have been investigated and plenty of taxa have been reported. Now is an appropriate time to gather latest evidence of fossil records and paleoenvironmental data to discuss their ecological and biogeographic implications, thus to better understand mechanisms of biogeographic change.

Efficient flowers export pollen with minimal loss while maximising the receipt of high quality pollen. This seemingly simple task is complicated by pollen vectors which introduce inefficiencies into the pollen export–receipt chain. Floral adaptations limiting these inefficiencies have been studied for more than a century, spawned by the work of a keen botanist who first recognised the adaptive function of flowers and their “various contrivances” for promoting outcrossing. Although fertile ground for evolutionary biologists ever since, investigations of plant mating have been severely hampered by the difficulties of following pollen grains from anthers to stigmas. Here, we will reveal an exciting new labelling technique using fluorescent nanocrystals (quantum dots) that allows individual pollen grains to be tracked in the field or in the lab. We will showcase recent work applying this technique to test long-standing hypotheses regarding heterostyly and enantiostyly as adaptations promoting mating efficiency within species. We aim to bring together speakers that will discuss how floral adaptations influence mating efficiency from the perspective of male and female components of fitness. Potential topics include selection on floral traits, pollen or ovule discounting, pollen limitation, and pollen transfer and wastage within single species and community contexts.

As direct evidence of the history of plant evolution, fossil records tell us the existence of numerous plants, their origin and diversification through geologic time. Meanwhile, based on these records we could understand the environmental conditions in which they lived and explore their response to global changes.
Twelve case studies will be presented in this symposium. Eight speakers have already agreed to participate, and we seek four additional presentations that focus on using fossil evidence to explore the plant evolution, diversity, and their response to global change context.

A number of vascular plant groups have intercontinental disjunctions in distribution. With the advent of molecular data and particularly use of molecular clocks, the roles of Gondwana breakup, migrations, and long-distance dispersals in the evolution of intercontinental disjunctions in seed plants have well been examined, but very little has been known for the evolution of such disjunctions in ferns and lycophytes. This symposium aims to bring pteridologists together who are interested in this topic to discuss updates in this field and to promote collaboration.

This symposium is designed to bring into contact researchers and graduate students in vegetation science, plant ecology, plant science, landscape ecology, conservation biology, and natural resource management, to stimulate fruitful discussions and develop future cooperation.  The subtropical/warm-temperate vegetation covers a large part of the land surface of East Asia.  Different approaches to plant distribution, population persistence, community types, interactions, succession and habitats will be used to discuss the subtropical/warm-temperate vegetation of East Asia.  Emphasis will be on the vegetation across scales of space and time, and exploration of the underlying ecological, multidisciplinary historical and ongoing processes that are driving vegetation patterns in the given area and the relations to tropical Asia.  Research presented at this session may be at any scale level, may consider plant species diversity, flora, forests, shrub communities, grasslands, sparse-woody grasslands and wetlands, and may involve field measurements, observation, experiments and modeling, within the context of the symposium theme.

Nectar is one of the key developments in the evolution of plant-animal mutualisms. Floral nectar (FN) attracts pollinators, whereas extrafloral nectar (EFN) recruits insects that defend plants against herbivory. Many aspects of the biology of nectaries and nectars were largely understudied for years, particularly at the molecular and ecosystem levels. However, a number of exciting findings have been reported recently, with results fundamentally changing our understanding of how nectaries evolved, how nectaries develop, how nectar is produced, and how the chemical composition of nectar impacts both mutualists and antagonists (and vice versa). The findings truly span the range of molecules to ecosystems. Two symposia are proposed that will include speakers who study both FN and EFN, with one symposium focusing on molecular aspects of nectary development and function, and the other covering more ecological and evolutionary topics. These symposia will attract a large number of colleagues from around the world who have been requesting opportunities to collectively discuss the topic of nectaries and nectars.

How have modern biomes been assembled through time?  This symposium will address this question especially through the lens of evolutionary biome shifts within particular plant lineages; for example, the evolution of plants from tropical forests into temperate forests or grasslands. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies provide direct evidence on such transitions and their timing in relation to climate change. We also will include speakers who approach biome assembly from ecological, physiological, and paleontological perspectives in hopes of stimulating a dialogue spanning these disciplines. In view of the exceptionally broad nature of this topic, we propose a full symposium with 12 presentations: eight invited talks and four selected from submitted abstracts.

Global warming put the debate on impact of climate change on biological systems among the hottest topics in science. Biologists predict that current climate change would cause more than a third of the Earth’s animal and plant species to be at risk of extinction by 2070. Such a trajectory would irreversibly harm biodiversity, disrupt ecosystems, and cause major damages to all biological systems. Awareness of non-anthropogenic climate changes which happened in previous geological eras could greatly improve our predictions about the ongoing trends through statistical modeling and managing to keep the ecosystems as intact as possible and reduce the harmful impacts of current climate change. Plant morphological traits provide useful tools in investigations on climate change, especially when addressing past climatic changes in geological eras through study of pollen, palynomorphs and phytoliths that indicate which plant groups were frequent in certain climates. On the other hand the ecotypic variation and plasticity of morphological and physiological traits determine which plants or plant groups might overcome the severe and quickly changing environments. The mechanisms and modifications behind these trait transformations are important issues to be focused in current and future scopes of biological sciences, including more realistic modelling of biogeochemical cycles and habitat distribution by using empirical trait–environment relationships.

Animals do not always deliver pollen grains to recipient flowers of the same species.  Interspecific pollen transfer (IPT) is a potential force in several contexts, including (1) the evolution of isolating barriers in speciation, (2) the interplay between competition/facilitation when co-occurring plant species share pollinators, (3) the potential physiological effects of allelopathic pollen on female reproductive success, (4) the loss of fitness through male function, and (5) the possible role in species interactions that govern plant community assembly or disassembly, including invasive species and phenological shifts. Over the last 40 years, such phenomena have received attention in scattered studies, but there has been a recent resurgence, as a number of young investigators have converged—from all of the above directions—to identify IPT as a primary object of study.  The time is ripe for a symposium that will critically look backward and forward.  Looking backward will help place current questions in a historical context and revise some incorrect or superficial impressions that show signs of taking root.  Looking forward will help establish an agenda for further research.  Expected participants include: Nathan Muchhala, Gerardo Arceo-Gomez, Robin Hopkins, Tia-Lynn Ashman, Shuang-Quan Huang, James Thomson

Plant traits, the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological attributes of plants, determine how plants adapt and respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, influence ecosystem processes, functions and services, and provide a link from species richness to ecosystem functional diversity. Relationships among plant traits, environmental factors and their changes, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning under global change and anthropogenic perturbations are critical to the comprehensive understanding of life-environment-human interactions. Trait data are thus important and the raw material for a wide range of research from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology to biogeography, as well as to vegetation modelling and even to the earth system model system. In this symposium, we try to present plant trait data and databases at various spatial scales from plots to regions and globe. Broad and deep knowledge on plant traits-environment-ecosystem function relationships will be investigated and synthesized to better understanding our planet changes and human wellbeing. Such trait databases and plant trait mechanisms under global change can be further incorporated into building the next generation of vegetation models. The modelling unit is expected to shift from species and plant functional type used in the past generation of vegetation models to plant trait as a new paradigm of trait-based ecology. Other practical topics, such as plant traits as indicators of biological conservation, ecological restoration and ecosystem service, are also welcome.

Ecological Genetics is the study of the selective and non-selective processes which influence the genetic composition of populations and in turn may lead to speciation. It incorporates gradual and rapid speciation (both homoploid and polyploid), hybridisation and introgression, gene flow, population size and intrinsic influences on population variation such as breeding system. It has a long history, essentially being central to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, although it remains of central importance in botany. The term was first used in the middle of the last century when the UK Ecological Genetics Group held its inaugural meeting in 1956. This was followed by EB Ford’s landmark text Ecological Genetics, first published in 1964. Hence IBC2017 will form a suitable opportunity to assess the progress made in the subject since its inception 50-75 years ago and to review burgeoning developments. Given that the discipline embraces current active areas of research such as landscape genetics and conservation genetics it will be of wide interest to delegates. This is reflected in its relevance to three of the main themes congress. The symposia will be primarily organised by Prof. Paul Ashton, co-author of the well-reviewed Ecological Genetics: Design, Analysis and Application (Blackwells, 2004), secretary of the British Ecological Society’s Ecological Genetics Group and symposium organiser at IBC2011 and IBC2005. It is intended that the symposia will feature 3-4 speakers covering the key areas of the subject with another 3-4 being younger researchers reflecting developing aspects.

Plant evolutionary biologists have long appreciated the role of key innovations, such as nectar spurs, in the diversification of flowering plants. Recent evidence suggests that chemical features of flowers – their scent, nectar, pollen and oils - play important roles in the spectrum of generalized to specialized relationships with pollinators. These roles include the structuring of plant-pollinator community networks through pollinator attraction and repellence, innate pollinator preference in specialized reward-based systems, partner choice in obligate mutualism and sensory exploitation in deceptive pollination. Improved methods in chemical analysis, combined with new statistical, genomic and phylogenetic approaches, make it possible to combine chemical ecological methods with the study of diversification in species-rich angiosperm lineages (e.g. orchids, figs, Araceae, Phyllanthaceae). This symposium will showcase the state of the art of these combined chemical ecological and comparative approaches, to explore the potential for floral chemical traits to function as key innovations in the diversification of angiosperm lineages. Southern China is an inspiring place to discuss such a topic, with botanical diversity across all of its biomes and emerging local research on chemical aspects of pollination.

Increasing agricultural sustainability is one of the most important goals for the future of humanity and for the preservation of the world's non-agricultural ecosystems. Plant ecological knowledge accumulated over the past century has much to offer this objective, but this has not been understood or appreciated by agronomists or plant ecologists.  This symposium will focus on the implications of plant ecology and other botanical sciences for increasing the sustainability of agriculture.

Plant invasions impose great threats to global biodiversity, economics and even human health. The goal of this symposium is to bring together international scientist, students and policy-makers to share and exchange information on plant invasions. Topics cover risk assessments (e.g., invasive risk of exotic plant species or a particular ecosystem), impact evaluation (at both community and ecosystem levels) and managements (e.g., classical biological control) of exotic invasive plants. Presentations and discussions will address timely issues in both theory and application from the perspective of plant invasions.

Plant composition and structure in different ecosystems around the world are mainly influenced by climatic factors such as temperature and rainfall amount and distribution, as well as by habitat characteristics including topography, rock cover, soil depth and nutrient availability. In addition, vegetation composition and productivity in rangelands are affected by consumption, tramping and faecal deposition of the herbivores. The different animal species and the diverse grazing management systems, including: stocking rate and timing of grazing have great effects on vegetation response. As stocking rates rise, impacts of grazing on rangeland vegetation become more pronounced. As so, defining the balance between sustaining animal production and conserving natural vegetation as the main forage source is a key issue in rangeland management, particularly under increasing uncertainty induced by climate change. In moderate to high productivity pastures, grazing often promotes species diversity by increasing spatial heterogeneity of resource distribution, and so, grazing can be used as a management tool for maintaining biodiversity.There is great need to strength our knowledge for a sustainable land-use management under fluctuating environmental conditions due to climate change These topics will be central in the proposed Symposium.

Grasslands, one of the most important terrestrial biomes in the world, are experiencing threats from anthropogenic activities and global environmental change that have drastically altered the ecological processes in grassland ecosystems worldwide. Such changes will eventually lead to diminishing ecological services that the entire human society depends upon. Therefore, it is important to study the effects of various global change factors on aboveground and belowground ecological processes in grassland ecosystems. This symposium will cover many important topics on how elevation of carbon dioxide concentrations, increase of atmospheric nitrogen deposition, overgrazing, changes of temperature and precipitation patterns, decline of biodiversity will affect the ecological processes at multiple hierarchical levels and across different spatial and temporal scales. We will invite speakers from the major continents representing the highest levels of scientific research and covering the most important grassland types in the world. Particularly, candidate speakers who have done edge-cutting research using long-term field experiments and new technologies are to be invited. We are confident that this symposium will draw a crowd of audience who are interested in global change biology research not only in grassland ecosystems, but also in other terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems as well.

Aboveground and belowground components are tightly linked via flow of energy and nutrients between plants and soil organisms. The interactions between aboveground and belowground processes determine ecosystem processes and properties. Terrestrial ecosystems are undergoing multiple global changes. It is unclear how global changes could alter the interactions between aboveground and belowground processes and consequently ecosystems’ ability to provide goods and services. Integrated researches of aboveground and belowground processes are therefore needed to achieve a comprehensive understanding of ecosystem dynamics under global changes. In this symposium, speakers will collectively address how aboveground-belowground interactions under changing environments affect the key ecological processes, such as plant and soil microbial biodiversity, ecosystem productivity, nutrient cycling and soil organic carbon stability. The researches presented in this symposium will cover observational studies, manipulation experiments and model analyses. Speakers have been chosen to mix of well-established scientists and young scientists across the world. Through the participation of both speakers and audiences, we hope to foster the discussion on the unknowns and future research directions on aboveground-belowground linkages.

Asia-Pacific is rich in biodiversity and home to 13 of the world’s 34 identified biodiversity hotspots but is facing a great threat. Although 19 percent of all forests are considered primary, these constitute only 5 percent of the total land area. A major part of the terrestrial biodiversity in the region is contained within forests. The area of primary forest in the region has declined at an estimated 0.5 percent per year  during the last few decades. The reason being intense human pressures together with direct and indirect impacts on land use which cause significant erosion of biodiversity. A decrease in forest density and habitat fragmentation have severe impacts leading to species loss. The maintainence of biodiversity poses a huge challenge. The porosity of borders as well as demands for wildlife continue to threaten marketable species. Increased access to more isolated areas through road construction will increase rates of depletion. Conservation of biodiversity will be particularly difficult for low-income, resource rich countries, in view of enormous internal and external pressures. It is estimated that between 13 percent and 42 percent of species will be lost in the region by 2100, at least half of which could represent global extinctions. Inspite of several conservation efforts, major losses of biodiversity persist. There are many protected areas but habitat destruction and extraction of high-value species is proceeding at a higher rate. This session will try to cover case studies from different countries in the region in the light of new climate change scenarios as well as looking into the possibilities of  awareness raising, stringent environmental impact assessments, and improved law enforcements. The sessions will be arranged according to the abstract submissions.

Small RNAs, including microRNAs (miRNAs) and siRNAs, are an extensive class of endogenous, small RNA molecules that sit at the heart of regulating gene expression in multiple developmental and signalling pathways. Recent studies have shown that climate change-induced stress, including both abiotic and biotic stresses induce aberrant expression of many small RNAs, thus suggesting that small RNAs may be a new target for genetically improving plant tolerance to certain stresses. These studies have also shown that small RNAs respond to environmental stresses in a small RNA-, stress-, tissue-, and genotype-dependent manner. During environmental stress, small RNAs function by regulating target genes within the sRNA-target gene network and by controlling signalling pathways and plant development. This symposium will focus on the current progress on this field and invite oral and poster presentations from the world wide.

There are more than 250,000 identified plant species, however, only a handful of them have been referred to and used as model species. To date, we have learned a lot from established model species, but there are many other non-model species with great potential to complement our knowledge of developmental processes. The available standard protocols for model species and current techniques make it feasible to exploit the unique potential of new model systems to broaden our understanding of the developmental mechanisms at work in plants.

This proposed symposium will provide a valuable opportunity for researchers to present recent findings in plant development using new ‘potential’ model species. This symposium will be organized around different areas (e.g leaf morphogenesis, flower senescence, virus-induced gene silencing, programmed cell death) that collectively, will identify approaches and methodologies used in plant development research. At the end, participants will be invited to share and discuss how non-model species can be used to further our understanding of plant development in addition to model species.

Speakers

1. Dr. Hirokazu Tsukaya, The University of Tokyo, Japan (Non-model systems for understanding mechanisms of leaf morphogenesis)

2. Dr. Arunika Gunawardena, Dalhousie University, Canada (Lace plant: a novel model to study programmed cell death in plants)

3. Dr. Annette Becker, University of Bremen, Germany (Virus-Induced Gene Silencing, the second best tool for gene function analysis in non-model plants)

4. Dr. Hilary Rogers, University of Cardiff, England (Exploring floral senescence without a model – the rich rewards of diversity)

Two speakers will be selected on the merit of their submitted abstracts.

Discussion and concluding remarks by Dr. Christian Lacroix, UPEI, Canada

Photosynthesis is a foundational process that supports biodiversity in the vast majority of ecological communities on our planet, including those inhabiting water-limited environments.  Many  plants employ modified forms of photosynthesis that increase their water-use efficiency under extreme environmental conditions. Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is one such innovation that has facilitated diversification in a wide array of plant lineages.  Multiple evolutionary transitions from C3 to CAM photosynthesis have had a major impact on primary productivity and biodiversity in water-limited terrestrial habitats, and over 6% of extant flowering employ CAM.  Recent comparative investigations of the molecular basis for CAM physiology in distinct plant lineages are advancing understanding of CAM evolution, and these advances have important implications for engineering of more efficient water use in plant species being grown in water-limited environments.  This symposium will showcase how comparative and functional genomics research are revealing both shared and lineage-specific evolutionary paths to the origin of CAM in diverse plant lineages.

Calcium channels have been finally described and associated with relevant physiological functions. Two families of channels, the Glutamate-receptor like (GLRs) and the Cyclic-Nucleotide Gated (CNGC), as well as the OSCA family, emerged as bona fide Ca2+ channels with functions in many fundamental developmental processes. The symposium will focus on the advances on the channel biology of these channels, and the major biological roles associated with plant Ca2+ channels, namely male gamete function, host-pathogen sensing, nodulation, osmosensing and others likely to emerge before the meeting takes place. Special emphasis will be places in defining regulatory and downstream signaling pathways of Ca2+ channels. The symposium will be organized in such a way that senior and young researchers will be represented, and a slot of the time will be reserved for short communications from selected abstracts.

Unisexual flowers, dioecy, and sex chromosomes have evolved multiple, independent times in all major plant lineages. Theory predicts that the evolution of dioecy requires two developmental changes, the loss of male fertility and the loss of female fertility, but details of these developmental and genetic changes remain a mystery in most dioecious plants. Common molecular mechanisms appear to drive the evolution of sex chromosomes, including the suppression of recombination at the sex determination locus and the accumulation of deleterious mutations and repetitive sequences, which may lead to genomic rearrangements, expansion and contraction of the sex determination region, gains and losses in gene content, and loss or movement of the sex determination locus to different genomic locations. Dioecious plants often have young or incipient sex chromosomes, offering the opportunities to examine early events of both sex chromosome evolution and the genetic and developmental events leading to unisexual flowers. The application of genomic and molecular technologies has accelerated dioecy and sex chromosome research in recent years, but there is still much to discover. This timely symposium will facilitate communication and promote collaborations among labs working on developmental aspects of dioecy and the evolution of sex chromosomes prior to the publication of important new results.

Plant development of underground organs depends on the maintenance and constant differentiation of root stem cells where located in the root apical meristem (RAM). This symposium will focus on root stem cells, and highlight the most recent development in understanding the molecular mechanisms of root meristem regulation.

Plant kinases and phosphatases play pivotal roles in reversible post-translational modification-mediated signal transduction. Sugar signaling is essential for plant growth, development, and stress responses. It is also well documented that the crosstalk between sugar and hormone signal transduction pathways constitutes an important part of plant regulatory mechanism. There have been tremendous interests and investigations in these two areas of research. The symposium will highlight the most recent development in the plant kinase and sugar signaling network.

Gene expression of the nuclear, plastid, and mitochondrial genomes in plants is mutually dependent and highly coordinately regulated and ensures adequate synthesis of proteins functioning in common protein complexes for organellar gene expression and energy-transducing activities in chloroplasts and mitochondria. The concept of intracellular communication includes an anterograde and retrograde signaling network between nucleus and the two organelles, enabling this interactive exchange of information essential for cellular homeostasis. By definition, the intracellular communication is based on the inter-organellar reciprocity whereby the transcriptional activities in the nucleus are regulated in part by signaling pathways derived from plastids and mitochondria (retrograde signaling), while the organellar gene expression is controlled by information received form the nucleus (anterograde signaling). The concept of intracellular signaling between nucleus and organelles is widely recognized and has been the target of intense studies. Many research projects have initiated efforts towards dissection of the physiological complexity of the organelle-to-nucleus signaling and better understanding of regulatory pathways. In addition, the involvement of developmental and environmental signals adds another layer of complexity to this already task. Despite these complexities, recent advances gained by a combination of genetics, transcriptomic and biochemical analyses have revealed correlations between metabolic status of the cell and the preceding distinct and common responses originated from plastid-derived signals.

Senescence is the terminal phase in the life cycle of plant. It is a genetically programmed cell death (PCD) accompanied by recycling of nutrition released during degradation of macromolecules. Key issues in this field include senescence-associated PCD, the mechanism of coordination among cellular-, organ-, and organism-level senescence, and the integration mechanism of various senescence-affecting signals. This symposium will focus on the current research progresses on senescence and novel insights for better understanding the mechanism of senescence in plants. We wish to invite scientists from worldwide to share their ideas on the forefront of senescence.

Plant growth and organ size control are of pivotal importance for development and crop yield. This symposium will discuss the latest advances in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing organ size. Invited speakers will cover research on Arabidopsis, as well as important food crops such as rice and maize.

The regeneration of whole plants from carrot somatic cells in vitro has been fascinated plant researchers since the 1950s, leading to the discovery of a wide variety of plant species that are capable to regenerate at levels from the single cell to major parts of the body. Numerous regeneration studies have demonstrated that the application of different concentration ratios of two plant hormones, auxin and cytokinin, leads to distinct regenerative pathways: a high cytokinin/auxin ratio will stimulate the regeneration of stems, leaves, and flower buds, and a high auxin/cytokinin ratio will induce root formation. The underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms for plant regeneration, however, remain poorly understood.

The objective of this symposium is to provide novel insights into fundamental principles that could help us better explain the regenerative potential of plants and to explore emerging research themes in plant regeneration. We wish to invite expert scientists to present novel technologies, concepts, and ideas on the forefront of plant regeneration, and particularly encourage pioneering researchers to share their new findings from non-traditional plant models.

Hybrid vigor or heterosis refers to superior levels of growth and fitness in the offspring to one or both parents. The description of phenomenon dates back to Charles Darwin.  Hybrid vigor plays an important role in evolution and population biology as evidenced by that most groups of eukaryotic organisms have evolved mechanisms to insure outcrossing.  The increase in biomass and fertility as a result of heterozygosity in most plant species provides an evolutionary advantage, and hybrid production has been widely used in breeding and agriculture for many crops, vegetables and some farm animals.  But despite this widespread use in practical applications and central role in evolutionary processes, both the genetic and molecular bases of heterosis have remained elusive.  Genetic models of dominance, over-dominance have been debated over a century and cannot adequately explain heterosis. Recent studies in plant hybrids using transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, epigenomic, and systems biology approaches have provided new insights. The emerging genomic and epigenetic perspective suggests that heterosis arises from allelic interactions between parental genomes, leading to altered programming of individual genes that promote growth, stress tolerance, and fitness of hybrids. This symposium will update research advances and perspectives in the field.

Flavonoids are widely distributed in higher plants and synthesized via the phenylpropanoid pathway. They play important roles in oxidative stress, UV filtration, symbiotic nitrogen fixation and floral pigmentation. For human beings, flavonoids have a broad range of biological and pharmacological activities. With the increase in living standards, people are becoming more and more interested in healthy food. Flavonoid components and their biosynthetic pathways differ in different plant species. Thus, it is a big challenge to identify specialized flavonoid components and elucidate their biosynthetic pathways. In addition, regulatory mechanisms underlying flavonoid biosynthesis are also important for improving plant productivity and food quality. The world leading scientists in this field will be invited to present their state-of-the-art advances in the study of flavonoid biosynthesis and regulatory mechanisms. Some speakers will be directly selected from the submitted abstracts through the congress website. Here, we sincerely invite you to participate in this symposium and look forward to meeting you in Shenzhen.

Plant responses to environmental stresses are governed by complex molecular and biochemical signal transduction processes, which act in coordination to determine tolerance or sensitivity at the whole-plant level. The abiotic stresses involve homeostatic biochemical reactions, recorded in terms of cellular information transfer at various levels of gene expression including transcriptional, translational, and post-translational regulation. Over the last decade, clues have emerged concerning these regulatory circuits and their physiological consequences. Only recently have emerged the tools to study the stress response in integration. Through this symposium, we seek to understand how plants perceive and respond to environmental changes, especially drought and high salinity.

Nitrogen and phosphorus play important physiological functions in plant growth and development, and it is also the major driving force for modern agriculture to achieve high grain yield. The main objective of this proposed symposium will be to review recent progress in the understanding of molecular, physiological and developmental processes involved in these two important plant nutrition. It will also aim at fostering exchanges and collaborations within scientific community interested in these topics. The conference will gather some world-leading experts in the field, and also provide an opportunity for young researchers to present their work. Therefore, the symposium will have invited speakers as well as speakers selected from submitted abstracts. The format of the meeting will include 12 oral sessions.

The development of both male and female germlines of plants results in the formation of the haploid gametophytic generations. In flowering plants the male gametophyte is reduced to the tricellular pollen grain and tube, respectively, containing two sperm cells. The female gametophyte consists in most families of seven cells including the female gametes (egg cell and central cell). This symposium will deal with the establishment of both germlines from archesporial cells, the establishment of cell polarity, asymmetric divisions as well as nucleus migration and other cellular processes ultimately leading to germ cell formation. A special focus shall be on the numerous communication processes between gametophytes and gametes, and with the maternal tissues of the ovary and pistil, respectively. Rejection processes of own and alien male gametophytes and sperm cells, molecular reproductive speciation mechanisms involving signaling and epigenetic effects are also welcome to this symposium. Fertilization mechanisms will include gamete delivery and release, their activation, prevention of polyspermy and the onset of embryogenesis. Topics such as the formation of unreduced germ cells are also welcome.

Photosynthesis is a process that converts solar energy and carbon dioxide into chemical energy and carbohydrates in in cyanobacteria, algae, and plants. In addition, plants are often exposed to a changing environment. Therefore, increasing or maintaining photosynthetic efficiency under environmental stresses will be vital to plant growth and crop yields. This symposium will focus on key aspects of photosynthetic efficiency and its environmental regulation. It will discuss recent progresses in molecular mechanisms of photosynthetic efficiency and how photosynthesis is regulated under environmental stresses, such as high light, drought, salinity, cold or heat stress. It will also discuss the possible approaches of increasing crop yields by enhancing photosynthetic efficiency

Light acts not only as an energy source for photosynthetic energy production but also one of the most critical environmental signals regulating growth and development throughout the life cycle of plants. Light signal is fundamental to the development and architecture of the photosynthetic systems. The symposium on “Light Signal and Photomorphogenesis” will focus on the photoreceptors, their signaling mechanisms, ecological significance and biotechnological applications of photobiology. This session will integrate research and education by soliciting participation at all levels including Ph.D. students, postdoctoral fellows and faculties. It is expected that this symposium will foster strong and lasting collaborations among the photobiology community.

Flowers are crucial not only for producing offspring but also for achieving high yield in crops. Moreover, flower development entails intricate growth and developmental processes, which provide many opportunities for elucidating fundamental principles in biology. Flower development is a long and complex process, which can be classified into four stages: transition from vegetative growth to reproductive development, specification of floral meristem identity, establishment of floral organ identity, and floral organ morphogenesis. The last 30 years have witnessed remarkable advances in our understanding of flower development. The objective of this symposium is to bring flower researchers across the world together to showcase and discuss recent progress in dissecting the molecular mechanisms of flower development from different angles. The employment of integrated molecular genetic approaches and emerging technologies, such as florescence-based imaging techniques and next generation sequencing, led to unprecedented progress in studies on flower development. We cordially welcome you to join us to present your exciting results that cover topics in floral meristem and floral organ identity specification, as well as floral organogenesis.

Stem cells posses the ability of proliferation, self-renewal and differentiation and thus act as the origin of all the tissues and organs. In plants, stem cells are maintained in specialized tissues called meristems. Of them, shoot merstems are positioned at the shoot tips and give rise to the aerial part. Cambium, the vascular meristem, located between xylem and phloem cells and generates secondary tissues. In both meristems, cell proliferation, growth and differentiation are precisely regulated by transcription factors, intercellular signals and phytohormones. This symposium will focus on recent progress on the mechanisms of stem cell maintenance and cell differentiation in shoot meristem and cambium.

Male sterility is widespread in plants, including cytoplasmic male sterility, hybrid sterility, photoperiod/temperature sensitive male sterility, and other nuclear gene-controlled male sterility. These genetic systems are excellent models for studies of cytoplasmic-nuclear interaction, allelic interaction, and environmental-genetic interaction. These male sterility traits are widely used for hybrid seed production in crops. This symposium section will report recent progresses in this field.

Plants adapt timing and duration of flowering in response to environmental signals such as photoperiod, temperature and biotic stress, but also to endogenous cues such as resource availability and age. Plant species have adopted different life style strategies to ensure long-term survival ranging from annual monocarpic to perennial polycarpic reproduction sometimes dominated by vegetative propagation. This holds also true for crop species where breeding objectives, such as highest fruit yield, may deviate from constraints imposed on wild relatives by natural selection. In this session we will welcome contributions that explore the molecular mechanisms connecting signal perception to floral commitment and timing of the reproductive phase. We would also like to explore how these mechanisms compare and evolve between and within plant species.

Fruits are unique to flowering plants and play a central role in seed maturation and dispersal. Molecular dissection of fruit physiology and quality regulation has received considerable interest because of the biological and dietary significance of fruit. The changes in fruit quality attributes, such as color, flavor, aroma and texture, represent complex physiological and biochemical processes during fruit development and ripening. Considerable progress has been made in our understanding of the biochemical and molecular basis of fruit quality formation and regulation. The important roles of transcriptional factor networks and phytohormone signaling pathways have been established in these processes. This symposium is aimed to gather the global scientists in the area of fruit physiology and quality regulation to emphasize the most important recent findings and to discuss the future directions in this field.

In recent years there have been considerable advances in our understanding of gymnosperm genomics and evolution, particularly in groups outside the conifers. In this symposium we will explore how these new data are influencing our understanding of genomic evolution and dynamics in seed plants. We will consider the role that recent and ancient polyploidy has played in gymnosperms. The widely held belief that gymnosperms show low frequencies of polyploidy, arises from the science community’s focus on conifers where polyploidization in extant species is rare. Yet we know that polyploidy is common in Ephedra and recent molecular transcriptomic data has revealed that polyploidy was involved in the ancestry of many gymnosperm lineages including Pinaceae and cupressophyte conifers. The session will also explore how advances in genome sequencing are revealing contrasting genome dynamics between the different gymnosperm lineages. For example, some data suggest that Gnetales share genomic features typically associated with angiosperms and that conifers have unusual genome dynamics amongst extant seed plants. In cycads too there are recent and more historical reports of unusual patterns of genome divergence. A final theme of the session will be to explore fundamental differences in gene families between seed plant lineages, including for example, the RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway. Collectively, we anticipate the session will explore how gymnosperms are providing new insights into patterns of genome evolution and are shedding new light on genome diversity in seed plants as a whole.

Plant phenotyping science has become a central field of research and application in academia and industry. The discipline provides a nourishing ground for the development of new phenotyping platforms and methods. New challenges such as the identification of novel traits, establishment of robust protocols and screening methods, which integrate non‐invasive, automated high throughput measurement of relevant plant traits both under controlled greenhouse and field scenarios arise throughout this development. Advancement of novel sensors and approaches for automated measurements that are integrated in a comprehensive data management and linkage framework are required. Plant phenotyping is developing as scientific field that has the aim to accurately quantify phenotypic traits, to give valuable basis for prognostic plant performance in the field, driven by the demand of users, who require relevant information on the plant-environment interaction. In this session, we will focus on the new technologies and approaches applicable for deep phenotyping as well as high throughput phenotyping under controlled and field conditions and, data integration and management.

The attributes of flowers and inflorescences shape plant reproductive strategies and key life-history traits, driving processes of diversification in angiosperms. The remarkable diversity of plant reproductive traits has generated a long-standing interest in understanding the forces that govern the evolution of plant reproduction, starting 150 years ago with Charles Darwin and Hermann Mller, among others. In recent years, the use of genomic approaches to address the molecular underpinnings of reproductive strategies has generated a powerful complement to experimental, theoretical, and comparative studies. Yet, the current extent of interdisciplinary collaborations is limited. In the proposed symposium, we draw from reproductive biology, ecology, biogeography, phylogenetics, genetics and genomics and bring together leading researchers to jointly investigate questions that link ecology and evolution of plant reproduction with genomic and other approaches. The following questions will be addressed: How do attributes of flowers and inflorescences evolve in response to ecological transitions? Are contrasting breeding systems associated with differences in distributional ranges and ecological preferences? How do different breeding systems affect hybridization, introgression, and species boundaries? How do switches between floral polymorphism and monomorphism affect patterns of mating and reproductive investment? What is the genomic control of plant reproductive traits? What are the genomic and evolutionary effects of transitions between self- and cross-fertilization? Do changes of flower and inflorescence attributes drive changes in the tempo of evolution and macroevolutionary diversification?This integrative perspective on the interactions among flowers, inflorescences, the breeding systems they effect, their ecology, and resulting patterns of gene flow and diversification will continue to shed light on the extraordinary diversity of flowering plants, an enduring abominable mystery.