This Summer school was co-organized by the French Saclay Plant Sciences (SPS) network and the German Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS).

Mankind is facing an unprecedented challenge from anthropogenic climate change. This is already associated with altered rainfall patterns, extreme weather events and less predictable seasonal patterns, which are expected to increase in the future. Climate change is a major challenge to crop production, food security and therefore to human society.

Agriculture is a victim of climate change but also a culprit since 20-25% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are released through agricultural activities. Without a substantial diet change, the ever-growing world population will require a 70-100% increase of agricultural productivity by 2050 to produce enough food. This must be achieved in a sustainable manner without compromising nutritional quality and in a context of decreasing GHG emissions and increasing C-sequestration to help mitigate global climate change. This complex scenario will require resilient, higher yielding crops having a more efficient use of water and minerals, and suited to climate-change adapted cultivation schemes and practices. Moreover, laboratory/researcher practices will also have to be modified to accommodate low energy-use/low C-footprint research activities.

In this context, the SPS-CEPLAS Summer School 2024 focused on introducing and discussing strategies, techniques and practices to carry out next generation plant research aimed at improving sustainable climate-change friendly plant productivity.

The summer school brought together outstanding and enthusiastic young scientists (PhD students and young post-docs) and high-level researchers from all over the world in order to exchange knowledge and ideas. It was limited to a small group of participants (20 maximum) to privilege informal interactions and scientific discussions.

Program and speakers

Download the program of the Summer School

This Summer School included:

         > Theoretical modules and discussions (~18 hours):

The objective was to address key climate change challenges from the perspective of plant sciences. Scientists gave lectures and led discussions, giving the participants an insight into the latest research findings and identifying key open questions in the field. Lectures focused on reducing agricultural GHG emissions, improving plant productivity/resilience to climate change, and the challenges of next generation low energy-use/low C-footprint research. They were presented in 4 sessions comprising a general overview followed by more focused research/technical talks from invited experts.

       Reducing N-inputs & improving NUE

Concepts addressed:
N-use-efficiency in crop species, N signalisation, allocation & remobilization, N metabolism & microbes in the context of climate change
Speakers:
Jacques Le-Gouis, (GDEC, Clermont-Ferrand, France)
Anne Krapp (IJPB, Versailles, France)
Fabien Chardon (IJPB, Versailles, France)
Benoit Alunni (IJPB, Versailles, France)

       Carbon: capture & sequestration

Concepts addressed:
Improving photosynthesis, sugar transport & partitioning, C-sequestration in trees and soil
Speakers:
Amanda Cavanagh (Essex University, UK)
Sylvie Dinant (IJPB, Versailles, France)
Philippe Ciais (LSCE, Saclay, France)
Cornelia Rumpel (Institut d’Ecologie et des Sciences de l’Environnement Paris, France)

       Plant resilience to climate change

Concepts addressed:
The interaction of elevated atmospheric CO₂ with plant mineral nutrition & abiotic stresses, stomata & stress signalling, the influence of bacteria on environmental stress resilience & N-nutrition, the influence of climate change on biotic stress resistance and computational modeling of photosynthetic acclimation
Speakers:
Hannes Kollist (Institute of Technology, Tartu University, Estonia)
Antoine Martin (IPSiM, Montpellier, France)
Guillem Rigaill (IPS2, University Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
Marina Cotta (MPIPZ, Cologne, Germany)
Axel de Zélicourt (IPS2, University Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
Richard Berthomé (LIPME, Toulouse, France)
Anna Matuszynska (RWTH Aachen University, Germany)

       Future research practices & opportunities

Concepts addressed:
How to reduce the C-footprint of scientific research & implement and promote environmentally friendly research practices, agroecology, biodiversity & climate change, and how to help farmers move towards a climate change sustainable agriculture
Speakers:
Jean Colcombet (IPS2, University Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
Paul Leadley (ESE, IDEEV, University Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
Sophie Gendre (Arvalis, France)

         > Workshop on outreach and communication (7 hours)

This workshop was led by Isabel Mendoza of the Global Plant Council. After a presentation on different forms of scientific communication including social media, participants formed groups, were given a hot-topic paper on plants & climate change and were asked to deliver communications aimed at the general public.

         > Collaborative Climate Fresk workshop (3 hours)

Climate Fresk is a powerful tool that provides a quality climate education. It requires all participants to take an active role in building the Fresk by linking causes and effects of climate change.
https://climatefresk.org/

         > Participant flash-talks and poster session (5 hours)

Each participant gave a short “get to know me” flash talk at the beginning of the Summer School. The poster session was organized to allow each participant to discuss his/her poster and to see all posters. It finished with a general discussion and a “best” poster prize.

         > Visit to the Barbeau forest C-flux tower field station

Participants joined Daniel Berveiller for a visit of the Barbeau forest field station and this was followed by a talk by Nicolas Delpierre after returning to the conference center. Daniel and Nicolas both work at the ESE, University Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
http://www.barbeau.universite-paris-saclay.fr/

         > Social activities

The Summer School proposed

• A cultural excursion to the Palace of Fontainebleau (https://www.chateaudefontainebleau.fr/en/)

• A pétanque tournament (https://www.wikihow.com/Play-Petanque)

The Summer School finished with communication and outreach workshop presentations and a round-table to discuss the scientific and socio-economic issues and technical challenges relative to the global Summer School theme.

This intensive and varied one-week program allowed many opportunities to discuss with speakers and fellow participants.

Organizers

Michael Hodges¹ (Coordinator)
Fabien Chardon²
Jean Colcombet¹
Etienne Delannoy¹
Alia Dellagi²
Sylvie Dinant²
Stan Kopriva⁴
Anne Krapp²
Anja Krieger-Liszkay³
Sébastien Thomine³
Andreas Weber⁵

SPS:
      ¹Institute of Plant Sciences Paris-Saclay - IPS2 (Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
      ²Jean-Pierre Bourgin Institute - IJPB (Versailles, France)
      ³Institute of Integrative Biology of the Cell – I2BC (Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
CEPLAS:
      ⁴Institute for Plant Sciences, Cologne Biocenter, University of Cologne (Germany)
      ⁵Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Germany)

Teaching language

English

Venue

Centre Port-Royal
Chemin du Charme et du Carrosse
78470 Saint-Lambert-des-Bois

Sponsors