The Organizing Committee is pleased to announce that the 5th International Conference on Plant and Microbe Adaptation to the Cold will be held 4-8 December 2009 in Lillehammer, Norway

The main meeting venue will be the historic Kulturhus Banken in Lillehammer and the Conference hotel will be First Hotel Breiseth. This year’s meeting follows in a series of meetings starting with meetings in Japan (1997), Iceland (2000), Canada (2003) and Italy (2006).

The following themes will be covered:

I. The Environment
What is a normal environment (million year perspective)? Environment and evolution of plants. Effect of low temperature on the abiotic environment. Ice formation. Soil movement. Desiccation. Availability of nutrients in soil.

II. Responses of plants and microorganisms to cold
Plants – Cold stress in plants – physiological/biochemical effects of low temperature (freezing and chilling injury), dormancy. Microorganisms - Cold stress in microorganisms / Cold stress in bacteria - Cold stress in fungi. Effects of indirect cold stress – Effect of indirect abiotic stresses: Ice, soil heaving, physical and chemical soil changes.

III: Cold adaptation in living organisms
Physiological adaptations in plants
Genetic adaptation in plants- plant breeding
Cold adaptation in microorganisms
Plant- microbe interaction in cold environment

IV: Climatic changes - New challenges

For more information, please visit the conference website: http://www.umb.no/conferences/article/pmac2009

Photo: Matthew Fang