14th Plant-Insect Workshop
Ecological and molecular plant defense mechanisms against insects

Extended registration deadline: 07 November 2019
Venue:
Room C0.07 (Doelenzaal), Universiteitsbibliotheek, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam
Target group: PhD candidates, postdocs and MSc students, but PIs and technicians also very welcome
Fees: EPS PhD & PD: €25, MSc Uva: Free, MSc other: €10, dinner +€10
Organizers: Joséphine Blaazer, Diana Naalden, Martha van Os, Krešimir Šola
Contact: uva.piw2019@gmail.com
More information: plantinsectworkshop2019.home.blog
Poster: PIIW2019 poster

Every year a group of PhDs and PDs from a different university organize this Plant-Insect Workshop for their fellow graduates and post graduates. This year the workshop will be organized by the University of Amsterdam. The topic: “Ecological and molecular plant defense mechanisms against insects”.

Programme

9:00 Registration and coffee

9:30 Welcome remarks

9:35 Keynote speaker Prof. Saskia Hogenhout (Department of Crop Genetics, John Innes Centre, UK)
Topic: Phytoplasma effectors modulate plant defences against insects

10:30 Student presentations (including a coffee break)

12:00 Lunch and poster session

14:00 Keynote speaker Prof. John Pickett (School of Chemistry, Cardiff University, UK)
Topic: Ecological management of crop pests

14:55 Student presentations (including a coffee break)

16:55 Borrel and poster session

18:45 Dinner at Cafe De Jaren

Furthermore, you are warmly invited to present your own research during the student talk sessions with powerpoint, prezi (both 25mins), pecha kucha (20 seconds x 20 slides) or bring a poster to the poster market. During the registration, please mark your preference.

Registration

You can register via the UvA online registration form. Registration will close 7 November. We want to clarify that PIs and technicians are welcome to attend! Since we are unable to modify the registration system at the time, they can register as PhD students/postdocs.

Please let us know if you’ll be joining the keynote speakers and us for a three course dinner and drinks at Café-Restaurant De Jaren. Don’t forget to upload your abstract and to register your preferred way to present your research!

Summaries

Prof. Dr. Saskia Hogenhout, Department of Crop Genetics, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK
Phytoplasma effectors modulate plant defenses to insects

Hemipteran insects are efficient vectors of a diverse range of plant pathogens, predominantly viruses and bacteria. Leafhoppers transmit phytoplasmas, which induce dramatic changes in plant development, including proliferation of stems (witch’s brooms) and the reversion of flowers into leaf-like organs (phyllody). Phytoplasma induce these phenotypes via the secretion of effectors that interact with and degrade conserved (plant) proteins, including TCP and MADS-box transcription factors. The plants also become very susceptible and attractive to phytoplasma insect vectors. Hogenhout studies how phytoplasma effectors modulate plant defences to insects.

Prof. Dr. John A Pickett, School of Chemistry, Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Ecological management of crop pests

The need for sustainable technologies in food production, which will involve more knowledge intensive approaches rather than the input intensive practices developed for the green revolution, requires innovative ecological management of insect pests of crops. Such innovations will also exploit, more dynamically, arthropods in biological pest management and additionally as providers of other ecosystem services. These new approaches must be effectively integrated to ensure that, after commitment of the carbon footprint of soil preparation and delivery of seed, water and plant nutrition, food is not then lost to competing organisms and particularly insect pests. There are largely undeveloped tools for these new approaches including insect pheromones and other natural signals, the semiochemicals. However, with new approaches to deployment arising from growing knowledge of agro-ecosystem management studies, there is increasing evidence of success. Conservation biological control of lepidopterous stem borers, and now the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda, for low input cereal farming in sub-Saharan Africa is dramatically demonstrated by the agro-ecological management embodied in the “push-pull” system. The underlying semiochemistry of this “push-pull” involves companion plants producing herbivore repellents and parasitoid foraging cues comprising highly unstable and volatile terpenoid oxidation products released normally by the cereal crops as a consequence of feeding stress by the lepidopterous caterpillars. New work is underpinning development of these semiochemicals by GM and synthetic biology. The cereal farming “push-pull” offers valuable evidence for using similar approaches for managing insect pests of crops more widely.

The need for sustainable technologies in food production requires innovative ecological management of insect pests of crops, including dynamic exploitation of arthropods. A new approach for conservation biological control has been demonstrated by the agro-ecological management embodied in the “push-pull” system. The underlying semiochemistry of this “push-pull” involves companion plants producing herbivore repellents and parasitoid foraging cues comprising highly unstable and volatile terpenoid oxidation products, and offers valuable evidence for using similar approaches for managing insect pests of crops more widely.

 

This workshop has been made possible with sponsoring from the University of Amsterdam, the Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, the Institute for Biodiversity and Ecological Dynamics, and the Graduate School EPS.


Thursday, November 14, 2019
09:00 - 18:00
UvA – University Library
Singel 425, Amsterdam