BSPP2012: Fitness Costs and Trade-offs in Plant-Parasite Interactions

President: Prof. James Brown

Disease resistance involves trade-offs with many other aspects of a plant’s phenotype and may cause reduced fitness in terms of growth and reproduction. Likewise, increased virulence to a host plant may lower the fitness of a parasite in other ways.

The BSPP 2012 Presidential Conference will bring together leading experts on fitness costs and trade-offs involved in plant disease. It will cover the full range of the subject from molecular biology and physiology to ecology and evolution, as well as the relevance of fitness costs to disease control.

President’s Welcome from Michael Shaw

Welcome to this year’s BSPP Presidential conference. Plant pathology arose from the need to be sure of food supplies and the disasters of the 19th century. With recent invasions of disease and unease about the future of food supply in the face of climatic shifts and increasing population, there is unusual public awareness of the science. The application of pathology to disease management remains its public face, but for many in the field the focus of scientific excitement is now the unravelling of the inner workings of host–pathogen relationships. Many hope this will provide tools which will eliminate the need for any further management of disease. I hope they are right; personally, I doubt it.

The aim of this conference is to help those attending set their work in a context of the kind of world we may see – or want – in the medium future: too far ahead to say what will actually be happening, but not so far that discussion gives way to fantasy. We have allowed more time than usual for discussion, and will be structuring the discussion to try and ensure everyone can have effective input. We have asked speakers to cover a range of aspects of future disease management. We hope that the ideas presented will stimulate discussion in the formal sessions, over refreshments, and beyond the conference.

Organising committee: Mike Shaw and Steve Whisson

Speakers: Didier Andrivon, Lia Arraiano, James Brown, Angus Buckling, Hans Cools, Santiago Elena, Fernando García-Arenal, Mogens Hovmøller, Ralph Hückelhoven, Jonathan Jones, Sophien Kamoun, Anna-Liisa Laine, Bruce McDonald, Tom Mitchell-Olds, Luis Mur, Paul Nicholson, Corné Pieterse, Gail Preston, Aurélien Tellier.

Download the proceedings