Actualia (2025) - Notifications of the Society

The Summer School „The Numbers Matter: Exploring Photoautotrophic Organisms through Quantitative Biology” took place from 15^th to 19^th September 2025 at the Institute for Biosciences at the University of Rostock. Fourteen PhD students and Rostock’s colleagues discussed recent findings, experienced hands‐on workshops on quantitative techniques. Theoretical lectures accompanied the lab courses. The organisers Jun.-Prof. Dr. Jennifer Selinski (Kiel) and Jun.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Richter (Rostock) report on the topics and contributions of the DBG-supported Summer School.

This year’s meeting of our Section Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology brought together early career researchers (ECRs) and experienced scientists. The more than 90 participants from four countries presented and discussed recent research results under the motto Frontiers in Plant Systematics and Evolution in Heidelberg at the End of August. Prof. Dr. Elvira Hörandl (Göttingen), reports on the highlights, the topics, informs, who of the ECRs received prizes for excellent research, and who was elected to be the new speaker of the Section. 

On 9^th and 10^th September DBG’s Executive and Extended Board met at the RUB to coordinate not only the highlights of the programme of our German Society for Plant Sciences (DBG) International Conference, the Botanik-Tagung, but also discussed the first results of DBG’s survey about the needs of early career researchers (ECRs), which is running since 1^st August. The invitation of the next conference chair, Prof. Dr. Christopher Grefen, also encompassed a test about possible meals that could be served at the conference, which awaits - like in previous years - several hundreds of plant scientists from various disciplines next year. Board reports from our president, Prof. Andreas Weber, our Treasurer, Prof. Raimund Tenhaken, about the impact of our scientific journal Plant Biology, about outreach and website, as well as solutions for current challenges for scientific societies were also topics discussed at this year’s Board meeting. 

From 1^st to 3^rd September 2025, the Early Career Workshop (early career researchers, ECR) of the DBG's sections Natural Products and Applied Botany took place at the Michaeliskloster Hildesheim, Germany. Over thirty doctoral students and postdocs from 16 institutions across Germany, as well as from the United Kingdom and Denmark, presented their current research work and used the forum for intensive scientific exchange. The two organisers, Prof. Dr. Dietrich Ober and Prof. Dr. Christian Zörb, report about the topics and research focuses discussed in the first joint meeting of the two Sections. 

In May, Canadian Robert William Pfeffer, great-grandson of eminent plant scientist Wilhelm Pfeffer, visited the places in Leipzig, Germany, where the namesake of the Wilhelm Pfeffer Foundation had conducted his research at the turn of the 19^th century. Robert William Pfeffer and his wife Martha Pfeffer presented a generous donation of 10,000 Euros to support the goals of the DBG's own foundation, which honors early-career plant scientists for outstanding research achievements. The foundation alternately awards the Wilhelm Pfeffer Prize for a Ph.D. thesis and the Prize for the Best Plant Science publication.

For their study published in the journal Science on the genetic basis of the biosynthesis of gramine, a toxic alkaloid in barley, the three first authors receive this year's Prize for the Best Plant Science Publication. The prize, awarded by the Wilhelm Pfeffer Foundation of our German Society for Plant Sciences and endowed with 1,000 euros, goes in equal parts to:  

• Sara Leite Dias from the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben (IPK), to
• Dr. Ling Chuang during the study at the Leibniz University Hannover (now at the Max-Planck-Institute for chemical ecology), and to
• Shenyu Liu, also from Leibniz University Hannover. 

"The discovery of the key enzyme for the production of gramine completes our knowledge of its biosynthetic pathway and holds the potential for numerous applications in plant breeding and agriculture. In addition, the enzymatic mechanism for creating a new carbon-nitrogen bond is also quite unusual,“ Prof. Severin Sasso, president of the Wilhelm Pfeffer Foundation, explains the award for this Science study entitled 'Biosynthesis of the allelopathic alkaloid gramine in barley by a cryptic oxidative rearrangement'. The elucidation of gramine biosynthesis also enables its production in other organisms that cannot synthesize gramine themselves, as the authors have shown for the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana or the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The new results also provide a basis for the breeding of improved barley varieties that are more resistant to herbivores, fungi and bacteria in the future and thus make a contribution to sustainable pest control. At the same time, the existing toxicity of barley for ruminants can be reduced in the future.

More on DBG's awards for early career plant scientists:

The scientific conference on the evolution of signalling and development in plant reproduction, organised by the DFG Research Unit “Innovation and Coevolution of Plant Sexual Reproduction (ICIPS)” in March in Berlin, was attended by more than 100 plant scientists from more than eleven countries. It not only provided a forum to discuss latest research results on land plants but also revealed that regulatory processes might have evolved before the traits that actually indicate them. Prof. Dr. Annette Becker and Dr. Romain Scalone summarize the international meeting, introduce the diversity of plants being under investigation and report about the awards that were given for best posters and an oral presentation. 

From March 9^th to 12^th, 2025, the 21^st scientific conference of the Phycology Section of the German Society for Plant Sciences (DBG) took place in the venerable halls of the "Alte Mensa" at the University of Göttingen. The conference was organized by Dr. Maike Lorenz, Prof. Jan de Vries, Prof. Thomas Friedl, and Dr. Janine Fürst-Jansen (University of Göttingen), and provided over 120 participants from Germany and abroad an opportunity to present and discuss their current research in the field of algal studies. A wide range of phycological topics was covered in 44 talks and 50 posters. Most of these contributions were presented by PhD students and postdocs and stood out for their high scientific quality. One of the many highlights was the visit to the University of Göttingen's Culture Collection of Algae (SAG) on the final day of the conference. Additionally, participants had the opportunity to explore Göttingen’s historic old town through guided tours in both German and English, with many references to the university city's fascinating history.

The annual meeting of the plant physiology groups at the Universities of Leipzig, Halle, Jena and Dresden took place this year already for the 23^rd time. It is traditionally organized in regular rotation between the four universities and took place this year on 14 and 15 February at the Leucorea in Wittenberg, being the “ancestral home” of Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Since its founding the organisers try to meet two major objectives:

1. to foster scientific exchange among the involved working groups at central German universities
2. to provide a board for early career researchers (ECRs, late bachelor and master students until dissertation) to actively present their findings at a scientific meeting.

This also provides a place to discuss scientific findings in an open atmosphere to an auditorium not only from the own working group. To do this, the programme, comprising 20 scientific talks and discussions, was almost solely carried out by the participating ECRs. The conference was supported by the German Society for Plant Sciences (DBG).

For the 38^th time, the Molecular Biology of Plants conference (MBP2025) brought together around 190 scientists in North Rhine-Westphalia, from 10^th to 13^th February 2025. Under the patronage of the Section Plant Physiology and Molecular Biology (SPPMB) of the German Society for Plant Sciences (DBG), the meeting once again provided a platform for PhD students, postdocs, and group leaders to present their latest research findings and engage in fruitful scientific discussions. Organised by Christopher Grefen (Ruhr University Bochum, RUB) together with Ute Höcker (Cologne) and Henning Kunz (Munich), this year's meeting provided a great cross-section of modern molecular plant sciences, with slightly more submissions on topics related to biotic interactions, molecular physiology, as well as cell and developmental biology. Conference Chair Grefen provides the details.

The Gordon Research Conference "Plant Proteolysis - Integration and Regulation of Plant Proteolytic Pathways" was held from January 19 to 24 at the Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco near Lucca (Barga) in Italy. 44 talks covering all facets of proteolysis in plants were highly appreciated and intensively discussed by the audience. The conference was organized by conference chair Andreas Schaller (University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany) and co-chair Marisa Otegui (University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA).

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.

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. 

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.

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, 6^th to 12^th September 2026.