July 2010 « The Echinacea Project

Final Poster!

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to thank everyone who helped me out in the field and helped give me advice on my poster. I am posing the final version below if anyone would like to look at it.

TownsendREU10.pdf

Poster and Powerpoint Presentation!

Hey everyone-

Thanks to all of you who gave me such great input for my poster and/or the powerpoint!

I attached a PDF of the finished poster as well as my slides for the powerpoint presentation because I know I was freaking out about fitting everything in 5 slides! So you can see how it turned out, and I have 4 extra slides if I get questions. haha.

KochkREU10.pdf
power point presentation.pptx

Now I need to practice, practice, practice the presentation! I’ll post one more flog update for how it goes on Friday. Eeek!

-Katie

Plants measured in the PHEN plot at Hegg Lake

We finished measuring plants in Jennifer’s Phenology plot at Hegg Lake WMA this Friday.

We measured many plants.

We measured about 2700 plants. Eight plants flowered this year. We visited another 1300 locations where we couldn’t find a plant (mostly because they had died). Here’s a map of the plot with the status of each location (click to see a bigger version)…

In addition to Echinacea angustifolia, we saw some good prairie plants in the plot, including lead plant (Amorpha canescens), yellow lady-slipper (Cypripedium calceolus), prairie rose (Rosa arkansana), Missouri goldenrod (Solidago missouriensis), silver leaf scurf pea (Psoralea argophylla), and many others.

It was a big job, but we were quite efficient. We laid out 50m tapes on every other row to help guide us. Four of us went out on Wednesday to flag positions 1 and 50 for all rows. That took ~2h. We started flagging positions 10, 20, but that was unnecessary. On Thursday we all went out and measured from 2-4 pm. On Friday we did two shifts: 10 -12 and 2:30 -5.

We were happy to be done.

On the way out we removed a weed that we had noticed the day before–spotted knapweed. We were careful not to touch it because it can be a skin irritant. I’d never seen this plant in the study area before.

Heading home.

What a great way to end the week. It was Katie and Laura’s last day. They are heading back to the Chicago Botanic Garden to prepare their posters and talks.

The awns! They move!

Check it out on youtube. It’s even available in full HD!

I’m actually just linking this because this blog isn’t wide enough to fit the whole movie.

Field work done!! Woohoo!

All the field work has been completed! Phenology data is in with the last plant having two immature florets left today which means that tomorrow will probably be its last day of flowering. I am hoping to start running stats on the phenology today or tomorrow. Below is a completed excel file with data from crosses and phenology, and a csv file of just the final phenology data that will be used for stats. I will keep posting the results from the analysis.
Ian

ian.phenology.final.csv
ians.results.2010(2).xls

measure plants in the PHEN plot at Hegg Lake

This afternoon we are going to measure plants in Jennifer’s Phenology plot at Hegg Lake WMA. Here is a script that makes a datasheet that assigns us rows to measure. The order is approximately 1 – 80, but they are slightly mixed up (just to keep us on our toes): measurePHENatHeggLakeRows.r

This week in pollination

If someone is able- some in the CG and some at Nice Island to be pollinated still exist.
Coreopsis palmata
In the common garden – to the east- I flagged two plants with heads that should be flowering and be able to be crossed. They are likely the only plants with heads close to being pollinated. Using a toothpick, transfer pollen from the donor head to the recipient head (red twist). Pollinate the donor head second using pollen from another plant at least 5 m away. Use a blue twist on the out-crossed head. Record the flag and the twist colors. If more twists are needed to mark the plant- go ahead!

Psoralea argophylla
There are still some plants to pollinate by the railroad crossing at Wennersborg road. They are 901, 128. The plants at Nice Island are unmarked – except the couple that are done there. (377 AND THE ONE DONE BY KATIE AND LAURA)

Solidago missouriensis
Using one complete bagged plant, pollinate one sprig or flowering branch with another from the same plant. Pollinate another sprig or flowering branch with a sprig removed from a flowering plant at least 5 meters away. Tag the self-crossed sprig with one color and the out-crossed sprig with a different color. (I used a wire- a twist will work.) Record the data as shown below the picture of the process.

For Solidago missouriensis at Nice Island:

Flag ID Self ID Sprig Outcross ID Sprig Date Site
G 11 Brown White July 18 Nice Island

The end is near

helandechfinaldataset3.csvAs all of you know katie and I are leaving this weekend to go back up to CBG, and I am hoping that Echinacea will be just about done flowering at all of my sites by then. It is looking hopeful and today I had my first site that was done flowering! I still need to tag the Echinacea at some of my sites though. I finished entering most of my data this weekend, and am very excited to see what the graphs and analysis will reveal. I am posting the cvs files for Stuart below, and some pics of a very interesting bug katie found today

corandcardfinaldataset2.csv
helandechfinaldataset2.csv

File for Stuart

let me know of you can open this one..

ExportForStats2.csv

Time-lapse time

So I think I have my basic setup for the time-lapse photography for checking out those stipa awns. Using one of Greg’s aquariums, a camera, tripod, computer and such. I’ll be able to change the humidity soon enough and really start the experiment.

Some of the stipa, just as a test

And here’s my setup. Off to the left of the aquarium is the 500W halogen light. The seeds and black felt are inside the aquarium. In front of that is the camera with a blind on the front to help knock down some glare from the front glass. Attached is the computer, which is what I’m using to control the time-lapse.

Categories

Experiments