Actualia (engl.) · DBG

Social Media: DBG discontinues X and joins Bluesky

Blue sky over green tree and meadow. Photo: shogun (Karl Egger), Pixabay

As the micro blogging platform X (formerly Twitter) has in recent weeks developed into a place that no longer respects scientific values and offers no space for fact based and constructive discussions, our German Society of Plant Sciences (DBG) has opened a new account on the platform Bluesky. With the handle @plantsciencedbg.bsky.social, the DBG has moved to a platform that is being joined by more and more people from the scientific community (s. Kupferschmidt (2024) 10.1126/science.zgpept9). Bluesky is a microblogging service, similar to the early days of Twitter, which uses an open protocol. DBG’s two X accounts – in German (@PlantScienceDBG with 2390 followers) and English (@PlantSciDBG_en with 6900 followers, as of January 7, 2025) – are kept in a “frozen” state to preserve the names and prevent them from being taken over by others.

DBG at Bluesky
Actualia (engl.) · Conference Report

Conference of the German Society for Plant Sciences: Botanik-Tagung

The conference images were kindly provided by IPK Leibniz-Institut Lynne Tiller, Marcel Quint, Julia Grimmer, Caroline Delker, Helge Brülheide, Esther Schwarz-Weig and others for DBG

In autumn, more than 600 researchers from various disciplines of plant sciences met for the Botanik-Tagung, International Conference of the German Society for Plant Sciences (DBG), in Halle (Saale). In his report, conference host Professor Edgar Peiter summarises the scientific topics, outstanding examples and award-winning research, and outlines which leading research personalities gave an insight into their latest results. 

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Actualia (engl.) · DBG · Promoting young researchers

DBG honours best Master theses for the tenth time

Experimental designs, summaries, as well as photos of the handing-overs of the certificates at the institutes at Karlsruhe, Kaiserslautern-Landau, Munich, Innsbruck, Hamburg, Braunschweig, Oldenburg, Bielefeld, Kiel und Münster. (c) graphs and photos : García Varo, Gabelmann, Holzner, Holzinger, Pelchen, Meckoni (2), Albach, Krieger, Hoensbroech, Obert and Kaltenbach

In the past year 18 authors of master theses received awards for their excellent research in the plant sciences. The topics for example were development, establishment or verification of new methods or techniques, analysis of metabolic pathways and biosynthesis, or addressing impacts of climate change. The studies also addressed plant pathogen defence, plant-microbe-interactions, functional characterizations, seed dispersal, enzyme studies, stress reactions, quality of seeds, or water balance. Thanks to the help of our contact persons DBG was able to award these prizes for the tenth year in a row at the participating universities.

Namen und Themen
Actualia (engl.) · DBG

Four new board members take office

New board members will contribute to DBG’s board (f.l.t.r): Professor Dr Iris Finkemeier, Professor Dr Boas Pucker, Dr Sophie de Vries and Professor Dr Christopher Grefen. Photos and (c): Laura Grahn (University of Muenster), Jakob Horz, Britta Leinemann (UGOE), M. Nowrousian

New board members took office on first of January according to our statutes: Professor Iris Finkemeier (Münster) took over the position as our new Secretary General from Professor Caroline Müller (Bielefeld), who had served with distinction for the past five years. Our new Secretary will be Professor Boas Pucker (Braunschweig), succeeding Dr Thomas Janßen (Berlin). The two new board members were elected in September 2024 at the general meeting in Halle. Dr Sophie de Vries (Göttingen) and Professor Christopher Grefen (Bochum) were elected as members of the extended board also during the Botanik-Tagung in Halle. Dr de Vries will represent early career researchers and Professor Grefen is the elected chair of our next international Botanik-Tagung in Bochum, Germany, 6th to 12th September 2026.

Board (2025-2026)