Functional Plant Biology celebrates its 50th volume

Functional Plant Biology is celebrating its 50th volume this year (known until 2002 as Australian Journal of Plant Physiology). Since the release of its first issue in 1974, the journal has been and remains an important vehicle for disseminating high-quality research to the Australian and international plant science community. Fifty years are long enough to look back and try to reflect on some past achievements and a way to move forward. So, where are we standing?

The journal was first launched in 1974 as a part of the CSIRO Publishing portfolio, operating in a partnership with the Australian Academy of Science and, at its beginning, was used mostly as a platform for disseminating results of Australia-based researchers (as reflected in its original name, Australian Journal of Plant Physiology). As the journal gained momentum, its focus gradually shifted from plant physiology to embrace many other aspects of plant science, prompting a name change in 2002. At the same time, the proportion of contribution of international authors has drastically increased, comprising its major bulk (e.g. 96% in 2021) and making the journal truly international. At the same time, the journal maintains its strong affiliation with the Australian plant science community, for many years providing two specific awards to the Australian Society of Plant Scientists (ASPS). One is the Peter Goldacre Award that is given to a researcher within 10 years of completing their PhD and who has made a major contribution to a field of plant science. The other is the annual best Functional Plant Biology paper published (as a lead author) by an early career ASPS member.

When I look back at the first issue of the journal, I am amazed by the calibre of contributing authors and want to reflect on some of their respective careers. Contributing to this issue was Lloyd Evans (Dunstone and Evans 1974), a former Chief of CSIRO Plant Industry Division (1971–1978) and a President of the Australian Academy of Science (1978–1982). Their work on the role of changes in the cell size on evolution in wheat is followed by the paper from Hal Hatch (Kagawa and Hatch 1974) that investigates the light-dependent metabolism of carbon compounds by mesophyll chloroplasts from plants with the C₄ pathway of photosynthesis. Hal is known to the international plant science community for discovering (together with CR Slack) the C₄ pathway of carbon fixation in plants. Another stellar name in the list includes Michael Pitman (Pitman et al. 1974), one of the founders of application of radioisotope analysis to study ion transport processes in plants, who then worked as a Deputy to the CSIRO Chief Executive and later as a Chief Scientist of Australia. Other distinguished names include Hank Greenway (Greenway and Sims 1974) who has made a tremendous contribution towards understanding of plant responses to salinity and flooding; Barry Osmond (Osmond 1974) who is renowned in the field of photosynthesis and photorespiration; and Joe Wiskich (Wiskich 1974), an eminent scientist distinguished for contributions to the understanding of the organisation and regulation of plant mitochondrial function. I apologise to other contributors to this issue as space limitation does not allow me to fully reflect on their distinguished careers.

Functional Plant Biology is also proud to publish many top-quality papers that revolutionised the field and shaped it for decades ahead. To give just a few examples: the paper by Farquhar et al. (1982) on the relationship between carbon isotope discrimination and the inter-cellular carbon dioxide concentration in leaves was cited nearly 3000 times and has become a textbook for anyone working on plant photosynthesis. A review on plant adaptive responses to drought by Chaves et al. (2003) was cited on Web of Science 2242 times. This is over 100 citations per year – higher than many Nature papers! Other most notable papers that received over 30 citations per year include studies on correlation between plant carbon isotopic composition and water use efficiency (Farquhar and Richards 1984); mechanisms of plant adaptation to sun and shade (Givnish 1988); soil flooding (Colmer and Voesenek 2009) and heavy metal toxicity (Gratão et al. 2005); copper transport and acquisition (Yruela 2009); effects of rooting volume on plant growth (Poorter et al. 2012); and cell wall properties in ripening fruits (Brummell 2006). The list goes on.

Where do we see Functional Plant Biology in the next decade and beyond? The current focus of the journal is on advancing our knowledge of mechanisms by which plants operate and interact with the environment. This includes mechanisms and signal transduction pathways by which plants adapt to hostile environmental conditions such as extreme temperatures, drought, flooding, salinity, and other major abiotic and biotic stress factors. This current focus is not accidental. Abiotic stresses alone cost the agricultural sector over USD170 billion per year in lost crop production (Razzaq et al. 2021) and represent a major threat to global food security. At the same time, annual food production needs to be doubled within the next few decades to match predicted population growth. This is not achievable by current agronomical and breeding practices due to the impact of climate change and associated abiotic stresses. Abiotic stress tolerance was present in wild progenitors of modern crops but has been significantly weakened or even lost during their domestication (Palmgren et al. 2015; López-Marqués et al. 2020; Yolcu et al. 2020; Rawat et al. 2022). This calls for a major shift in our paradigm of crop breeding, focusing on climate resilience (Razzaq et al 2021) and requires detailed knowledge of the mechanistic basis of plant sensing and adaptation to hostile environments. In this context, Functional Plant Biology strongly favours studies that integrate plant operation, from the molecular through to whole plant to community scale.

Wrapping up, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all former editors of Functional Plant Biology who have made the journal what it is today. My special thanks go to Rana Munns, who passed on the role of Editor-in-Chief to me in 2014, and whom I consider as my research mentor. The success of the journal would also be impossible without past and current Editorial Board members who have generously invested their time and efforts into papers, enabling an efficient peer-review process. Without such quality assurance the journal would not be able to stand where it is now. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all members (past and present) of the CSIRO Publishing team who work tirelessly behind the scenes to allow journal’s operation. Finally, to all contributors to Functional Plant Biology: thank you for putting your trust in us, and for sending your work to the journal. We look forward to more quality research in the future, and wish you all the best in all your endeavours.

Professor Sergey Shabala

Editor-in-Chief

Functional Plant Biology

The author is an Editor for the journal but played no role in the editorial handling or reviewing of this manuscript. The author declares that no other conflicts of interest exists.