History and prospects of plant sexual reproduction congresses, the IASPRR and sexual plant reproduction

Abstract

HistoryAs we enter the 21st year of the journal Sexual PlantReproduction, it seems both fitting and appropriate toconsider the genesis both of this journal and its parentorganization, the International Association for Sexual PlantReproduction Research (IASPRR)—particularly throughits much longer history of plant sexual reproduction con-gresses, informal interactions and this area of scientificpursuit as it is transformed in the modern era.Interestingly, the parent organization for the journal didnot formally exist until 2 years after Sexual Plant Repro-duction was first published in 1988. The IASPRR wasformally founded in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in1990 and since that time has represented scientists workingon various aspects of plant sexual reproduction rangingfrom molecular to structural levels. Nowadays, there arefrequent congresses and workshops all over the worldwhere scientists report their work on plant sexual repro-duction, from the local level to regional, national andinternational meetings. The congress series under the aus-pices of the IASPRR, however, is the only one with a longhistory and an exclusive focus on all aspects of sexual plantreproduction providing researchers around the globe with aunique opportunity to discuss most recent progress anddevelopments in the field. Additionally, there have beenperiodic Eastern European Plant Embryology congresses, asymposium series on Frontiers in Sexual Plant Reproduc-tion was initiated in 2000, as well as some other topicalcongresses of a more local nature. Increasingly, emergingmolecular data has made sexual plant reproduction a pop-ular topic at national and international botany and plantbiology conferences.The science of sexual plant reproduction has a longhistory that reaches beyond the 315 years interval sinceCamerarius uncovered the sexuality of plants (Zˇa´rsky´ andTupy´ 1995), passing 150 years of neglect before the dis-covery of gametes, and then a great period of exploration inthe 1800s concluding with the discovery of double fertil-ization in 1898 by Nawashin. It could be argued that ourtrue classical era diminished with the untimely death ofProf. Panchanan Maheshwari, but he was notably present atthe first congress in this series. In the same volume wherevan der Pluijm (1964) presented the first ultrastructuralfindings on degenerate synergid participation in receivingpollen tubes, Prof. Maheshwari asked astute questions onhis findings (see Linskens 1964). This modern era includedelectron microscopic findings and witnessed the rise ofmolecular biology to answer questions in plant repro-duction. Famous names and schools attended theseconferences that preceded the founding of IASPRR andconference proceedings chronicle the collected data andideas leading to concepts that sustain the science of today(Kapil 1967; Hesse 1987; Cresti and Linskens 1999).Over the last 50 years, the number of congresses hasincreased (Mulcahy et al. 1986; Ottaviano et al. 1992;Bednara 1996; Kuta 2005), and congresses, workshops andnewsletters relating to plant sexual reproduction havegradually increased to their current position. In the first half