Botanik conference 2024: plant research in the sign of climate change

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The Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg will become the center of plant research at the end of next year if the botany conference of the German Botanical Society takes place from September 15th to 19th, 2024. Over 600 scientists from different countries and disciplines will gather here to illuminate the current and future challenges of climate change for the fauna. The conference will deal intensively with the question of how plants can deal with the rapid changes of their environment.

The challenges in front of which the plants are facing are enormous. In contrast to animals, they cannot simply move to adapt to better conditions. "Plants have adapted to their environment for long periods of time. But the current climate change is at a speed that many plants cannot keep up," explains Prof. Dr. Edgar Peiter from the MLU. These challenges are not only worrying for the plants themselves, they also affect human society directly, since plants are essential for the production of oxygen and as the basis of our food chains. "You can't start the importance of plants," adds Peiter.

a comprehensive program

The content of the conference is diverse and profound. In the planned 135 lectures and 360 posters, subject -specific topics are dealt with that range from molecular aspects of plant metabolism to biodiversity of complex ecosystems. This thematic width is also reflected in the large number of speakers who want to link not only basic research but also applied research.

A special highlight will be the public evening lecture by Prof. Dr. Be Helge Bruelheide, who takes place on Monday, September 16, 2024, at 7 p.m. in the lecture hall XX of the Melanchthonian. Bruelheide, a renowned geobotanist, will talk about current findings on the biodiversity and show which factors they influence and what serious consequences their loss has for both the environment and for society.

cooperation partner and meaning of the conference

The organization of this important conference takes place in cooperation with several renowned institutes, including the Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry (IPB), the Leibniz Institute for Plant Genetics and Cultural Plant Research (IPK) as well as the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (IDIV) in Halle-Jena-Leipzig. The German Botanical Society, the largest organization for plant scientists in German -speaking countries, is also a core partner of the event and represents over 1,000 experts from various plant science disciplines.

This conference is of crucial importance to gain new knowledge and to develop solutions for the pressing challenges in plant research. The exchange between scientists from various specializations will offer a valuable input for the further development of research and help to develop strategies in order to better adapt plants and ecosystems to the future requirements of climate change.