The 57th Annual Meeting of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS) titled „Biodiversity & Vegetation: Patterns, Processes, Conservation“ was held in Perth, Australia in the beginning of September. From our working group Martin Zobel, Mari Moora, Maret Gerz, Lena Neuenkamp and Jaak-Albert Metsoja participated.  In their keynote talks, Martin addressed the role of the species pool concept in studies of plant communities („The role of the species pool concept in the study of diversity patterns and plant community assemblages“), and Mari pinpointed the importance of including soil microbial communities – especially fungal plant symbionts – in vegetation research („Progress and challenges in `underground ecology´“).  Lena presented data of successional changes in functional diversity of an abandoned calcareous grassland („30 years of succession in an Estonian calcareous grassland: how does time and landuse history shape plant community functional composition?“). Jaak-Albert focussed on plant community changes on a sediment deposition site at a river floodplain („Drivers of plant community assembly on sediment deposition sites at the River Emajõgi floodplain, Estonia“). With her poster „Plant community mycorrhization differentially affects plant species diversity in forests and grasslands“ Maret  showed how effects of mycorrhization do vary among ecosystems. All abstracts are published in Mucina, L., Price, J.N.& Kalwij, J.M. (eds.), Biodiversity and vegetation: patterns, processes, conservation. Kwongan Foundation, Perth, AU.