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COST-ACTION 8.38
Managing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi for improving soil quality and plant health in agriculture

DRAFT

1. Opening and welcome

The Local Organizer (José-Miguel Barea), the Director of the Hosting Institution, EEZ, CSIC (Juan-Luis Ramos), the Director of the Meeting Centre, Fundación Euroarabe, University of Granada (Jesús Gonzalez), and the Chairman of COST 8.38 (Silvio Gianinazzi) welcomed participants.

During his welcome, Silvio Gianinazzi announced that a new country – ESTONIA - has signed COST 8.38 Action: this bring to 24 the number of participants countries.
Silvio Gianinazzi also announced that Jorgue Jakobsen the TC rapporteur for our actions is participating to the meeting.
(The TC rapporteur is the scientist from the Technical Committee Agriculture, Biotechnology and Food Sciences, appointed to action to monitor and evaluate the progress. The TC rapporteur is doing/organising the mid-term and the final evaluation).

2. The agenda was approved.

Item 9: Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson replaced Manuela Giovannetti (who was usable to attend the meeting) in presenting the IBG activities.
The planned presentation by Rob Feldman (NL) on “certification of mycorrhiza” was decided to be presented in the Scientific Programme.
The agenda was approved.

3. Approval of the Minutes of the 7^th Management Committee Meeting

The draft of the minutes of the 7^th MCM held in Nicosia (CY), November 21-22, 2003 were put in the COST 8.38 web page for comments. There have been comments and amendments that have been subsequently included in the definitive version that was unanimously approved

4. COST 8.38 activities since the 7^th MCM

Silvio Gianinazzi, summarized the main activities developed by COST 8.38 since the 7^th MCM

- Workshops

• Role of mycorrhiza in sustainable land management, Vught, Huize Bergen, The Netherlands - February 26-27, 2004
• Exploring and exploiting the natural AM fungal diversity in stressed soil-plant systems, Granada, Spain – October 21-23, 2004

- The International  Bank for the Glomeromycota meetings

• The International Bank of Glomeromycota, INRA, Dijon, France - November 28-29, 2003
• Germplasm collections of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF): A european heritage, University of Pisa, Italy – June 18-19, 2004

- Small meetings

• “Innovative technologies to save endangered and rare plants”, University of Kraków, Poland – June 11-12, 2004
• “Natural Solutions for Agriculture in Cyprus” – A bi-communal workshop on mycorrhizal technology in Cyprus, Cyprus – June 21-24, 2004.
• “Mycorrhization of microplants, Valencia, Spain – October 18-19, 2004.

- Inter COST activities
Poster presentation on COST 8.38 Action at the MCM of COST 6.31 by José Miguel Barea (see Annex 1 of the Minutes)

5. Scientific Programme associated to the 8^th MCM

Programme, abstracts and reports of the scientific programme “Exploring and Exploiting the Natural AM Fungal Diversity in Stressed Soil-Plant Systems”, can be seen on the COST 8.38 Web page http://www.dijon.inra.fr/cost838/

6. Some comments on the COST 8.38 Action

Bouktje Stol, presented the new COST office in Brussels and explained how this new COST structure will interact with Actions.

Changes in COST in 2005:
1) In response to the demands from Actions, and endorsed by many Technical Committees, the CSO decided in its meeting on December 1/2 that COST Actions Management Committees may assign up to €2000 per annum from within an Action budget for the support and development of an Action Website, to be hosted at the server of one of the institutions represented on the Management Committee. Such Websites should only cover specific matters for the Action and should not duplicate material already published on the main COST Website in relation to COST and its structures etc or to general matters regarding the Action. This Website should also be used for MC and Working Group business.(procedure will follow).
2) The CSO has also agreed in the same meeting on an extension of the duration of STSMs. The STSM-duration next year will be from minimum one week till maximum 3 months. The maximum budget available for the 3 months is 2500 euro.
3) As a consequence of the differentiation of the price of air tickets, the reimbursement forms and rules will change somewhat. In principle participants will be reimbursed for hotel nights during the meetings at maximum including the night before and the night after the meeting. Participants who want to stay longer for a cheaper ticket will have to prove that from now on with a document from a travel agency which shows that the price difference exceeds the additional hotel costs. Without such an approval, the participants have to pay the additional nights themselves.
4) From now on there is a limited budget available for participants from institutes in Albania and Bosnia Herzegovina. These countries are not yet COST countries but scientists from institutes in these countries can participate in your actions (after approval MC/CSO) and can be reimbursed.

Not changed in 2005, but please respect the existing rules/procedures:
1)  For COST money always commitment/approval by MC and COST Office is necessary, prior to the meeting/mission/publication. Simply sending invoices and requests afterwards can not be accepted. Please respect a minimum period of one month in advance of the meeting/STSM. Requests done within one month before the event will always be handled if possible, but please realise many times it is just not possible; the risk is yours in this case.
2) Participants lists for meetings should always include the email addresses; otherwise we can’t send the invitations and reimbursement forms.

Silvio Gianinazzi congratulated Bouktje Stol for the work done and expressed his satisfaction for the progress made in the management of the Action

7. Discussion on a possible publication, a "Manual on Techniques to Analyse Natural Diversity of AM fungi"

Peter Jeffries gave an overview on the history of the Systematics of the Glomeromycota “From Endogone to the Glomeromycota – in 200 years” (see Annex 2 of the Minutes). A discussion took place on the opportunity to publish a booklet on the subject. It was agreed that Soren Rosendahl and Caroline Grotkass will explore the possibility of publishing such a Manual respectively on the theoretical and practical aspects.

8. The sequencing programme for Glomus intraradices.

An update of the DOE JGI G. intraradices genome sequencing project has been presented by Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson
Genome sequencing of G. intraradices will have an important impact on the scientific community as it will be the first AM fungus to be sequenced. Whilst no individual species is ideally suited to be representative of an entire phylum, the targeted G. intraradices isolate is an attractive choice because of its small genome (Hijri & Sanders 2004), its amenity to in vitro culture (St. Arnaud et al. 1996), and the availability of an increasing number of EST sequences in databases (~4,000 in NCBI). The US initiative to sequence G. intraradices is lead by the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (Lammers et al. 2004), seconded by a Steering Committee with members from the US and Europe. Two plasmid libraries and one fosmid library have been constructed from genomic DNA, and 24000 sequencing reactions have already been run to test the quality of the plasmid libraries. Production phase sequencing to 8X depth is envisaged to be finished towards the end of 2004. Assembly into countings and automated annotation will occur before public release of the data, anticipated in mid-2005. It may be reasonably concluded that insights and tools obtained from genome sequencing of G. intraradices will be widely applicable in AM fungal research.

9. The International Bank for the Glomeromycota

Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson summarized the history from the BEG (Banque Européenne des Glomales) to the IBG (International Bank for the Glomeromycota) and presented:

1) The new IBG Steering Committee:

- Manuela Giovannetti (I): Coordinator, herbarium slide depositor
- John Dodd (UK): Website, database
- Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson (F): Core culture collection, isolate supply
- Soren Rosendahl (DK): Strain registration, Expert system
- Philipp Franken (D): Genetic archives

2) The future activity of the IBG

- Legalization of IBG activities via the establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding between participating European Research Institutions,declaring their common intention to participate in the establishment of a strongly interconnected network of European Stock Centres of AMF (European Bank without Walls).
- Update of 1999 COST booklet on AMF in participating laboratories
- Extension of IBG activities towards more training and as a link between the scientific community and mycorrhiza industry (IBG/BEG label, quality testing)
- Proposals for implementation of IBG specificity:

Range of services
- Molecular identification
- Curated sequence databases for rRNA genes and ESTs
- Implementation of Expert System
- Free release of more isolates
- Online techniques manual on AMF diversity

- EU Project within the future call on “Establishing a Community programme on the conservation, characterisation, documentation, collection and utilisation of genetic resources in agriculture “ (COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 870/2004 of 24 April 2004)
Framework: A European Network of germplasm collections, archives and knowledge repositories of AM fungi : microbial genetic resources fundamental for soil fertility and plant nutrition in sustainable agriculture.
Main objectives
a) Conservation, extension, acquisition, collection, characterization, evaluation and exploitation of genetic resources of AMF.
b) Conservation and documentation of knowledge on taxonomy, eco-physiology and genetics of AMF.
c) Memorandum of understanding (European Bank without Walls).

10. Statuts of ICOM5 organization

J. M. Barea and Conchi Azcón-Aguilar summarized the information already available, particularly, those from a meeting held on the 20 of October at Estación Experimental del Zaidín, Granada with the participation of Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson, Conchi Azcón, Silvio Gianinazzi, Peter Jeffries and José-Miguel Barea

Venue
1) Palacio de Congresos de Granada, Granada
2) Pending dates 2006: 30 July-3 August; 23-27 July; 16-20 July; 9-13 July (to try to Symbiosis Meeting, Vienna, 5-11 August 2006) (Sunday-Thursday + Friday for excursions)

Thematic Title: Mycorrhiza for Science and Society

Daily organisation:
9-11.30: Parallel sessions (2) (30’ intro, 6 x 20’ presentations)
12-14.30: Parallel sessions (2) (30’ intro, 6 x 20’ presentations)
Lunch
15.30-16.30: Posters
16.30-18: Workshops + poster discussion
18.30-20: Keynote lecture

Keynote lectures (concerning micro-organisms, in general)
1) Evolutionary symbiosis
2) Soil micro-organisms in environmental issues (bioethics, risks)
3) Microbial diversity, conservation and sustainability (productivity, soil restoration)
4) Compatibility, a driving force in plant-microbe interactions
5) Soil microbe resources and agricultural policies

> Sessions (introductory and offered talks) 4 per day (2 parallel) (concerning Mycorrhiza)
- Cell programmes: (1) from genome to transcriptome
- Cell programmes: (2) from proteome to metabolome (isoformome)
- Signals and perception
- Genetics/genomics of mycorrhizal fungi
- Evolution and phylogeny
- Population biology of mycorrhizal fungi
- Functional diversity in mycorrhiza
- Mechanisms in stress resistance/tolerance
- Mycorrhizosphere interactions/biology
- Biodiversity and ecological impacts
- Biome-related functional ecology
- Improved inoculum technology and implementation
- Mycorrhizal impacts on plant product quality
- Mycorrhiza in alternative production systems (new cultures, low input, organics….)
- Mycorrhiza in landscape management (mine re-vegetation, land reclamation, waste cover….)
- …………………..

Workshops: Call on website
New technologies in mycorrhizal research

Conference Committee
José-Miguel Barea: Chairperson
Conchi Azcón-Aguilar: Secretary
Silvio Gianinazzi: Chairman COST 8.38

Logistics (Local) Committee
Rosario Azcón, Nuria Ferrol, Juan-Manuel Ruiz Lozano, Bert Bago, Carmen Lluch, Pre- and post-doctoral students from the Host Institution

Steering Committee
Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson: Chairperson
Conchi Azcón-Aguilar: Vice-Chairperson
Chairpersons of ICOMs 1, 2, 3 & 4: Tom Bruns (mol ecto), Roger Finlay (ecol ecto), Sally Smith (physiol AM), Yolande Dalpé (conservation AMF)
Session organisers

ICOM 5 Website
Ø Date, venue, title, link with tourist info,
ØMain themes/philosophy
ØExpression of interest to attend
ØCall for workshop topics
ØThe Website (available at the beginning of 2005) will be http://www.eez.csic.es/icom5/

Possible sources of financial support
New Phytologist, BMS, Mycol Soc America, Mycorrhiza,…..
Inoculum producers, OECD, NATO, Spanish Ministry for Science, Euroconference (EC), IFS, CSIC
Abstract book by Junta Andalucía (Plan Andaluz de Investigación)
Mycorrhiza Society? Peter Mougoulis, Yolande Dalpé for ICOM4 left overs

11. Future activities

Our COST Action will finish May 24, 2005 and it has been decided that
- 1^st The Final meeting will take place in Dijon, June 2-4, 2005. Silvio Gianinazzi will be in charge of the organisation; it may be necessary to hold a small preparatory meeting.
- 2^nd A training course (summer school?) on “Sampling and evaluation strategies for AMF diversity characterization” will be held in Lisbon, June 20-26, 2005 and organized by Maria Amelia Martins-Loução (P).
- 3^rd Small meeting on the Certification of mycorrhiza and another on the International Bank for the Glomeromycota will also be organized respectively by Jacqueline Baar (NL) and Manuela Giovannetti (I).

12. Short term scientific missions

Silvio Gianinazzi summarized the 4 STSMs accomplished during 2004

13. Place and data of next MCM

The final COST 8.38 MCM will be held in Dijon, June, 2005, in conjunction with the Final meeting

Annex 1

Annex 2