47th New Phytologist Symposium programme

Pre-event	Monday 1 June
19:00 – 21:00	Informal gathering at the Mercado Victoria, (https://www.mercadovictoria.com/ ) we have reserved an area, and drinks and food will be available to purchase.
Day 1	Tuesday 2 June
Approx. 9am	Sign up for a free visit to the Mosque of Cordoba, a World Heritage Site Limited to 50 people – please sign up when confirming your lunch/dinner options Exact timings to be confirmed
From 11 am	Registration - Please collect your name badge and lunch tickets Poster presenters should put up their posters during this time.
From 12 noon	Lunch – in the café (please provide waiting staff with your lunch ticket)
13:00 – 13:30	Welcome from the organising committee Owen Atkin and Rafael Villar
Session 1: Heatwaves and plant life – when and where Chair – Owen Atkin, Australian National University, Australia
13:30	1.1 Heatwaves, how hot? (title TBC) Mike Kearney, University of Melbourne
14:30	1.2 The heat is on: plant and soil relationships with temperature in Earth's hottest terrestrial landscapes Sasha Reed, US Geological Survey, USA
14:30	Panel discussion
15:15- 15:50	Refreshment break – in the café
Session 2: Eco-evolutionary responses to extreme heat Chair – Cristina C Bastias, University of Cordoba, Spain
16:00	2.1 Constrained thermal tolerance and the future of ecosystem services Joanne Bennett, Charles Sturt University, Australia
16:30	2.2 *The upper thermal limit of photosynthetic function in 26 Eucalyptus* and Corymbia species depends more on leaf size than climate-of-origin.** Kristine Crous, Western Sydney University, Australia
16:40	2.3 Extending the thermal limits of life: thermal tolerance and life history of grasses from extremely hot geothermal areas Aelys Humphreys, Stockholm University, Sweden
16:50	2.4 Rethinking thermal vulnerability: from population trade-offs to community context Cleber Chaves, State University of Campinas, Brazil
17:00	2.5 Coping with extreme heat: drivers of variation in plant physiological tolerance Andy Leigh, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
17:30 – 18:15	Flash talks Flash talk presenters will be confirmed shortly
18:15 – 19:30	Poster session
19:30 – 20:15	Drinks reception – in courtyard

This programme is subject to change, last updated 1 May 2026

08:55	Morning announcements
Session 3: Adapting plant metabolism to heatwaves Chair – Carl Ng, University College Dublin, Ireland
09:00	3.1 Priming for heat stress resilience: decoding underlying signalling mechanisms Annapurna Allu, IISER Tirupati, India
09:30	3.2 When heat breaks photosynthesis: enzymes, diffusion, and the hidden bottleneck Demi Sargent, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Australia
09:40	3.3 Defining the limits and trade-offs of plant photosynthetic heat tolerance under extreme heat Bradley Posch, Desert Botanical Garden, USA
09:50	3.4 Exposure time, not temperature alone, determines the thermal limits of leaf respiration under heat stress across thermally contrasting biomes. Daniel Cowan-Turner, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
10:00	3.5 Why and how? Quantitative determination of plant programmed cell death induced by extreme heat. Joanna Kacprzyk, University College Dublin, Ireland
10:30	Refreshment break - in the courtyard (weather permitting)
11:00 – 12:30	Discussion session – data and collaboration
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch – in the café (please provide waiting staff with your lunch ticket)
Session 4: Water to mitigate heat stress Chair – Charlotte Grossiord, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland
13:45	4.1 Heat stress or high VPD? Towards disentangling thermal effects and atmospheric drought effects on vegetation. Dani Way, Australian National University, Australia
14:15	4.2 An interaction of stomatal signal transduction pathways confers heat-stress-induced stomatal opening. Nattiwong Pankasem, University of California San Diego, USA
14:25	4.3 Hydraulic stress limits thermal acclimation in trees under chronic drought. Alyssa Kullberg, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
14:35	4.4 Flower bud cooling: Sepal specific enhancement of transpiration protects pollen development and improves fertility during heatwaves Martijn Jansen, Radboud University, the Netherlands
14:45	4.5 How did the plants learn to buffer hotter and drier conditions? Celia Rodriguez-Domiguez, CSIC - IRNAS Seville, Spain
15:15	Refreshment break – in the café

Session 5: Modelling impacts of heatwaves Chair – Rich Norby, University of Tennessee, USA
15:45	5.1 The kinetic basis of photosynthetic heat tolerance Sean Michaletz, The University of British Columbia, Canada
16:15	5.2 Dry air, hotter land: how vegetation responses amplify future warming Julia Green, University of Arizona, USA
16:25	*5.3 Plant vulnerability to heat and drought stress in the hottest places on Earth: evidence from Vachellia erioloba* in the Kalahari** Kerry-Anne Grey, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
16:35	5.4 Paleo-ecosystem simulations of deep time heating episodes are a tool for studying trait-environment influences on plant survival and biogeography in a heating Earth William Matthaeus, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
16:45	5.5 A stocktake: how well can we predict effects of extreme heat on plant photosynthesis, water use and growth? Belinda Medlyn, Western Sydney University, Australia
17:15 – 17:45	Breakout sessions Smaller groups will meet to further address data and collaboration Feedback to be shared in the final session
17:45 – 19:30	Poster session
19:30 – 20:15	Drinks reception – in the courtyard (weather permitting)

08:55	Morning announcements
Session 6: Plant-biotic interactions during heatwaves Chair – Mike Kearney, University of Melbourne
09:00	6.1 Thermal limits of plant reproduction: when pollen sets the boundary of life Sergey Rosbakh, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
09:30	6.2 Soil microbial diversity decline amplifies heat stress impacts on plant metabolism and productivity Uttam Kumar, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
09:40	6.3 Exploring and mitigating the effects of extreme heat on blueberry pollination and pollinators Rufus Isaacs, Michigan State University, USA
09:50	6.4 The effect of heat shock on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus growth and nutrient transport. Victoria Terry, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
10:00	6.5 Root-microbial decoupling under climate extremes Madhav Thakur, University of Bern, Switzerland
10:30	Refreshment break – in the courtyard (weather permitting)
Session 7: Ecosystem responses to a future, hotter world Chair – Adrienne Nicotra, Australian National University, Australia
11:00	7.1 Temperature-driven changes to forest functioning Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, University of Cambridge, UK
11:30	7.2 Water availability modulates the thermal sensitivity of tree growth responses to climate variability in the Amazon Kathelyn Paredes Villanueva, Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno, Bolivia
11:40	7.3 Atmospheric heat stress outweighs rainfall in regulating herbaceous biomass production in a Mediterranean shrubland Marcelo Sternberg, Tel Aviv University, Israel
11:50	7.4 Tropical forests are facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temperature thresholds Mukund Rao, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
12:00	7.5 Effects of extreme high temperature on carbon exchange in three typical ecosystems Hua Lin, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
12:30 – 13:45	Lunch – in the café (please provide waiting staff with your lunch ticket)
Session 8: Designing food systems and landscapes for a hotter world Chair – Tracy Lawson, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA
14:00	8.1 Achieving sustainable crop productivity in a hotter world Elizabete Carmo-Silva, Lancaster University, UK
14:30	8.2 Evidence for adaptation to heat stress in cropping systems Aidan Farrell, The University of the West Indies- St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago
14:40	8.3 Genome-wide association analyses show distinct genetic architecture for photosynthetic heat tolerance in wheat and barley Hanna Amoanimaa-Dede, University of New England, Australia
14:50	8.4 Extreme cooling enables extreme heat survival in plants Joanna Feehan, Michigan State University, USA
15:00	8.5 Designing urban landscapes to cope with a hotter world Kevin Hultine, Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix, USA
15:30	Refreshment break – in the café
16:00 – 17:00	Breakout sessions – Discussing solutions to the challenges of extreme heat · Natural and urban ecosystems · Agricultural systems
17:00 – 19:00	Break
19:15 – 22:30	Symposium dinner Location – Bodegas Campos (Calle Lineros 32. 14002 Córdoba) Arrive 19:15 for a drink’s reception and appetisers 20:00 for dinner 21:00 – Flamenco show 21:30 – Dessert/ coffee Following dessert, a cash bar will be available

08:55	Morning announcements
Session 9: Remote sensing of heatwaves Chair – Belinda Medlyn, Western Sydney University, Australia
09:00	9.1 Impacts of heat on plants as seen from space Andrew Feldman, NASA / University of Maryland, USA
09:30	9.2 Resilience and recovery from an extreme heatwave: impacts of the June 2021 heat dome on trees and forests of the US Pacific Northwest Christopher Still, Oregon State University, USA
09:40	9.3 Canopy temperature drivers across ecosystems and remote sensing measurement challenges Jen Diehl, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA
09:50	9.4 Unravelling drivers of heat and drought stress across genotypes and seasons using optical-thermal-spectral and fluorescence indicators in sorghum Spoorthi Nagaraju, The University of Queensland, Australia
10:00	9.5 Remote sensing of stress impacts on plant metabolism Rocio Hernandez Clemente, University of Córdoba, Spain
10:30	Refreshment break – in the courtyard (weather permitting) Poster votes due at end of break
Session 10: End of NPS Plenary Chair – Sasha Reed, US Geological Survey, USA
11:15	10.1 Preparing plant life for a hotter planet? (title TBC) Fernando Valladares, CSIC, Madrid
11:45	Closing panel discussion · To include feedback from breakout sessions
12:45	Closing and prizes
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch – in the café (please provide waiting staff with your lunch ticket)
Approx. 15:00	Sign up for a free visit to the Mosque of Cordoba, a World Heritage Site Limited to 50 people – please sign up when confirming your lunch/dinner options Exact timings to be confirmed

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