The Dahlem Centre of Plant Sciences (DCPS), founded in 2009 at the Freie Universität Berlin,celebrated its opening with a half-day symposium on September 29, 2010. More than 200 guests followed the invitation to the recently renovated lecture hall of the Botanic Museum to hear the addresses and talks by officials from the Freie Universität Berlin, the Berlin Senate Department and internationally renowned plant scientists.

The three main disciplines Molecular Biology, Plant Systematics and Ecology united in DCPS were represented during the opening ceremony by talks from internationally renowned speakers: Wilhelm Gruissem from the ETH Zurich gave an enthusiastic talk about the future requirements, promises and challenges in crop plant breeding to feed the growing world population. Erik Smets from NCB Naturalis and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven highlighted the past and future developments in Plant Systematics. The broad and complex field of ecology and the multitude of organismal interactions were presented by Wim van der Putten from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology.

Read more on Taxon's section "Plant systematics world".