ICOM2

Welcome to the Second International Conference on Mycorrhiza, and to Uppsala, Sweden. Almost 600 people from 48 different countries registered for the meeting. We are pleased that you were able to attend. This abstract book contains details of the scientific program and over 500 abstracts submitted to the organising committee. Most of these have already been published on our conference web site http://www-icom2.slu.se and will remain there for a period of one year after the conference. The abstracts are as submitted by the authors and have not been edited. Mycorrhiza meetings appear to be growing in size with every year. Over 300 of you submitted contributions as oral presentations. For reasons of limited space we decided, at an early stage, against parallel lecture sessions and many people have consequently been asked to present posters. Nevertheless we hope that you will have a happy and stimulating conference in Uppsala. Our subject area is diverse, covering most areas of plant biology, and increasing awareness of the central role of mycorrhizal symbiosis means that meetings will probably continue to grow in size. In the future, parallel, multi-session conferences will probably become the norm. Here in the plenary sessions in Uppsala we may have one of the last chances to listen and talk together as one group, in the spirit of ICOM 1 – “bridging the gaps” between different disciplines and techniques.

Roger Finlay, chairman ICOM-2 organising committee