ERC SYNERGY Project HYDROSENSING

Plantae Presents – Figuring It Out: Creating Figures That Communicate Science
plantae.org/plantaeprese... via @plantaeofficial.bsky.social

A woman writing on a flipchart during a course. Text highlighting the EMBO Lab Leadership for #Postdocs courses still have places available in January 2026

Places still available for @embo.org Lab Leadership for #Postdocs online/in-person courses in January! Take time to focus on your interpersonal skills, discover tools to support your development + tune up your communication skills. Sign up now: www.embolableadership.org/course/embol... #EMBOLabLead

And learn about all our papers in one single place 👇

hydrosensing.eu/publications/

Group picture of the HS team in Regensburg.

18 months into #HYDROSENSING learning about water sensing & droughts response & it shows:

🧬 15 publications (more coming)
🔬 CRISPR libraries + protein structures underway
🌾 Work advancing in Arabidopsis, tomato & rice models
🌱 40+ scientists collaborating

Read more: hydrosensing.eu/2025/12/hydr...

Great session yesterday with Andrew Fleming from @sheffielduni.bsky.social

He gave our researchers a fascinating look at stomatal mecanics & the role of stomata in plant function, which was especially insightful for those of us who usually focus on roots🌱

Thank you Andy for an inspiring talk!

Dr. Malcolm Bennett will be speaking about “Discovering how plants sense water stress” this Wednesday, 26th of November at Auditorio Abate Molina, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas UC, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

🔸 Wednesday, 26 November
🕙 10:00 hrs

Relationship between hydrological restoration & the recovery of vegetation communities in boreal forestry-drained peatlands 📊🧪

Uses data on
👉species communities
👉water-table level
👉porewater quality
...before restoration & 2, 5 & 10  years after it! 🌎

🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Screenshot of an online Teams meeting with 26 participants. Nine people have their cameras on, showing researchers from the Hydrosensing team discussing their weekly research updates.

In today’s meeting, Malcolm Bennett went member by member through the research updates from the @uniofnottingham.bsky.social team, discussing methods, results, and how these connect with the work of others across the extended Hydrosensing team.

Lots of food for thought.

Exciting times ahead 😉

ROOT & SHOOT 2026 travel awards. Q. Member of MANRRS, SACNAS, or AISES? Q. Curious about plant science? A. Apply for a ROOT & SHOOT travel award! Up to $3000 to attend a plant science conference in 2026.

The 2026 plant science conference travel award program is open!
Awards are given to student/mentor pairs.
At lease one of the pair must be a member of SACNAS or MANRRS or AISES.
Please share, applications due by Dec 5, 2025.
@sacnas.bsky.social
rootandshoot.org/2026-root-sh...

Picture of Malcolm Bennett

Huge congratulations to our colleague and PI Malcolm Bennett, named among Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers 2025 in Plant & Animal Science! One of only 7 UK researchers in this field! 👏👏👏

Beyond being an outstanding scientist, he’s also a truly supportive and kind colleague. We’re so proud!!

A person in a lab coat and safety glasses looking at plants in a greenhouse

Working in plant health and want showcase your achievements? Then why not apply for our new Plant Health Professional Development Award!

Visit the award webpage to find out more: www.rsb.org.uk/plant-health...

#PlantHealth

ECRs suggested adding new topics, especially since Hydrosensing bridges physics + biology, two very different scientific disciplines.

Talking openly about challenges helps keep expectations realistic.

We’ve just hit the 1/3 mark on the project, good time to pause & ask: what’s working, & what could be better?

At our last meeting, the ECRs led the discussion, PIs listening in. Everyone agreed the ECR meetings have been a strength a space to share the basics of each team’s work & discipline 💬

Join us for the EMBO | EMBL Symposium 'AI and biology' 🤖🧬

Explore how AI transforms biological research – from foundation models for biology to generative modelling 🧠💡

10 – 13 March 2026
EMBL Heidelberg and Virtual
Submit your abstract: s.embl.org/ees26-02-bl

#EESAIBio #AI

Nanocosmos: Faster Than Your Quickest Thought!

"Physik goes Downtown Night 2025" featured science presented by speakers from RUN that was truly mind-blowing. They delivered fantastic talks about the movement of atoms at speeds that completely redefine "quick"! www.uni-regensburg.de/physik/schul...

The @ziegler-lab-ur.bsky.social delegation survived the Munich Half Marathon! This Trial of Spirit demanded the Force be strong with us. And the Force was extraordinarily strong with @katjaurbansky.bsky.social Her exceptional pace has earned her a promotion to the Council of cryoKnights - so cool!

Why do scientific societies matter now more than ever?

Scientists board explore how societies support researchers, foster global collaboration, & shape the future of science. A must-read for all career stages 👍

🔗 buff.ly/YW2XUN3

#plantscience #science

... with Bjørn Torger Stokke, Martijn Vandegehuchte, & Kirsten Krause (UiT).

#StrawberryWalls expands from @hydrosensing.bsky.social work taking knowledge further, from water sensing to heat stress & pest resistance.

Interested? Watch this space for updates!

4/4

Strawberry, Nature, Farm image. Free for use. Image by Silvestre Cajigan from Pixabay

... and Fragaria vesca (wild strawberry 🍓) to:

🌡️ examine cell wall mechanics in heat adaptation
🦠 test how higher temperatures affect pest/pathogen infections
🌾 lay groundwork for more resilient crops

The team spans physics, biology, & ecology led by Prof. Thorsten Hamann (NTNU)...

3/4

Mountains, Fjord, Norway image. Free for use. Image by Henning from Pixabay

As the Arctic warms 4× faster than the global average, new farmland may open in northern latitudes... but pests & pathogens are moving north too.

The project aims to understand how plants cope with these twin challenges and will study Arabidopsis thaliana...

#ClimateChange #PlantScience

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Image: Habitus (top) and cross section through a haustorium (bottom) of a Cuscuta dodder shoot infecting a host plant. Cell walls in the cross sections were stained with Toluidine Blue O. Infectious and non-infectious dodder tissue were false-colored in orange and yellow, respectively. Scale bars: 500 μm. Credit: S. Olsen, K. Krause, UiT.

Big news from the NTNU team! 👏

They've received €2.1M from the Norwegian Research Council for #StrawberryWalls project, exploring how plants adapt to heat, drought & pests in a warming Arctic.

👉 hydrosensing.eu/2025/10/strawberrywalls-new-research-to-help-plants-thrive-in-a-warming-arctic/

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Enjoy the picture to see moments from the visit — from the Robin Hood statue to the lab and evening strolls through Nottingham! 🌿

@uniregensburg.bsky.social

4/4

The visit highlighted the spirit of our project: connecting scientists across borders and disciplines to advance cutting-edge research together to uncover the mechanisms plants use to perceive water stress.

3/4

During this visit, Christine Ziegler @ziegler-lab-ur.bsky.social joined Malcolm Bennett in their lab at the University of Nottingham, while Eilon Shani @eilonshani.bsky.social also happened to be visiting the same research center — a perfect coincidence for a productive and friendly reunion!

2/4

From Sep 28th to Oct 1st, three of our PIs met in Nottingham for an in-person exchange of ideas and progress discussions. Over the days, the team engaged in:

🔬 Lab tours & hands-on sessions
💻 Project webinars
🍽️ Group lunches and dinners
💡 Discussions to spark ideas for collaborations

1/4

Congratulations, to the Nottingham University team, specially Dr Poonam Mehra (in the picture)! 🌱

Poonam Mehra with the new ERC-funded vertical confocal platform to image roots growing more ’naturally’

Exciting news from the @uniofnottingham.bsky.social lab!🔬

They have just set up a new ERC-funded vertical confocal platform that will allow to image root systems growing in more "natural ways"

This setup will open up new opportunities to study plant development in unprecedented detail

MC 2025: We came, we saw, we won🏆 🏆! Amazing team on a fantastic time at the Microscopy Conference in Karlsruhe.
Get this: two of our posters won Poster Prizes! We're pretty sure it was our perfect blend of science and questionable doodles in the margins. @ziegler-lab-ur.bsky.social

Hydrosensing team eonline meeting audience

Back from summer & team meetings are buzzing again!!🧑‍🔬

To a good start, Barak Mitman from @eilonshani.bsky.social shared work on xerobranching-associated genes & transporters 🌱

We also welcomed many new faces, especially from Nottingham, making our calls bigger than ever: 26 people, 4 countries!! 🤩

JXB 75th Anniversary Symposium SESSION 4: FUTURE New Plan(t)s Chairs: Franziska Fichtner & Ola Skirycz 19 September | 1.30 PM | Edinburgh INVITED SPEAKERS Assoc Prof Nicola Patron University of Cambridge Recoding Regulation: Towards predictable network engineering Dr Franziska Fichtner Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf Trehalose 6-phosphate coordinates sugar status with hormone signalling and plant development Dr Devang Mehta KU Leuven Re-engineering plant chronobiology: from genome to proteome and from molecules to future geographies

🚨 Registration closes TODAY! 🚨

🌟 #JXB75 Daily Highlight 🌟

📅 Sept 19 – Final Session
🔮 FUTURE – New Plan(t)s 🧬

Exploring emerging technologies & synthetic biology with:
✨ Nicola Patron, Franziska Fichtner & Devang Mehta 🎤

👉 bit.ly/JXB75

#JXB75 #PlantScience 🧪