A rainbow-like cloud glows over exPt01 while the team was in MN for fall 2023 burns. A good omen for the field season that followed!
Introduction
Every year since 1996, members of Team Echinacea have recorded flowering phenology, taking measure data and harvested heads from thousands of Echinacea angustifolia plants in plots with “common garden” experimental designs. These experimental plots are located in prairie remnants, restorations, and abandoned agricultural fields that are managed as grassland habitat. Currently, the Echinacea Project has 10 established experimental plots. Some plots have multiple ongoing experiments within.
In the past few years, we have scaled back significantly on taking phenology records in the experimental plots. During 2023 and 2024, our primary goals with phenology were to a) map out the positions of flowering plants/heads within the plots, b) deploy twist ties to all flowering heads to ease measuring and harvesting, and c) to record the day of first flowering for all heads in plots to continue the long-term data collection in a more scaled-back fashion. As a result, we conducted only a few rounds of phenology per plot and did not capture the full range of flowering dates for every head. Phenology info is briefly reported on in each plot’s update along with the location of the data. This applies to the hybrid experimental plots as well.
Crew members Wyatt and Emma search can’t find positions in exPt01
Experimental plot 1 was first planted in 1996 (cleverly termed the 1996 cohort), and has been planted with nine other experiments in subsequent years, with the most recent planting being Amy Waananen’s inter-remnant crosses. It is the largest of the experimental plots, with over 10,000 planted positions; experiments in the plot include testing fitness differences between remnants (1996, 1997, 1999), quantifying effects of inbreeding (inb1, inb2), and assessing quantitative genetic variation (qGen1). It also houses a number of smaller experiments, including fitness of Hesperostipa spartea, aphid addition and exclusion, and pollen addition and exclusion (these experiments have separate posts).
In 2024, we conducted phenology in this plot between July 8th and July 18th. During measure, we visited 3123 of the 10,992 positions planted and found 2728 living plants. 83 plants were classified as “flowering” in exPt01 this year, totally 96 heads. This is a significantly fewer plants than flowered in summer 2023 (560). In summer 2024, we harvested 82 total Echinacea heads in exPt01 (including many from the ever-productive 99 south garden).
ExPt01 is also the only plot to have staples marking positions where plants that have died used to be. We added 67 staples to the experimental plot this year, but only in locations that we couldn’t find staples during measure that were already supposed to be there. We didn’t have time to get to every position with a missing staple (see where we covered here: Dropbox/CGData/125_measure/measure2024/staple2024/2024addStaplesExPt01.pdf). We did not have time to re-search locations that we called plants “can’t finds” at three years in a row in 2023 and 2024. Once these locations receive their final search, hopefully in 2025, we can put staples at them as well.
This experiment was started in 2020 by Amy Waananen to understand how the distance between plants in space and in their timing of flowering influences the fitness of their offspring. If plants that are located close together or flower at the same time are closely related, their offspring might be more closely related and inbred, and have lower fitness than plants that are far apart and/or flower more asynchronously. Plants in this experiment resulted from interremnant hand-crossings from 9 remnants: On27, SGC, GC, NGC, EELR, KJ, NNWLF, NWLF, LF. Crossing took place in 2020 and 2021, and individuals were planted in 2020 (as seed) and 2022 (as plugs). Surviving plants were assigned cgPlaIds in 2023 and incorporated into the p1 workflow. Mortality in this experiment has been high, with 80.3% of positions searched in 2024 resulting in “can’t finds.”. We did not re-search “can’t find” positions in 2024 due to time constraints (with Amy’s approval).
The inb1 experiment investigates the relationship between inbreeding level and fitness in Echinacea angustifolia. Each plant in experiment inb1 originates from one of three cross types, depending on the relatedness of the parents: between maternal half siblings; between plants from the same remnant, but not sharing a maternal or paternal parent; and between individuals from different remnants. All individuals were planted in 2001. We continued to measure fitness and flowering phenology in these plants.
The inb2 experiment investigates the relationship between inbreeding level and fitness in Echinacea angustifolia. Each plant in experiment inb2 originates from one of three cross types, depending on the relatedness of the parents: between maternal half siblings; between plants from the same remnant, but not sharing a maternal or paternal parent; and between individuals from different remnants. All individuals were planted in 2006. We continued to measure fitness and flowering phenology in these plants. In October 2024, former team member Riley Thoen recently published a paper in the Journal of Hereditary on the conservation value of small remnants using results from this experiment.
The qGen1 (quantitative genetics, or just qGen) experiment in p1 was designed to quantify the heritability of traits in Echinacea angustifolia. We are especially interested in Darwinian fitness. Could fitness be heritable? During the summer of 2002 we crossed plants from the 1996 & 1997 cohorts of exPt01. We harvested heads, dissected achenes, and germinated seeds over the winter. In the spring of 2003 we planted the resulting 4468 seedlings (this great number gave rise to this experiment’s nickname “big batch”).
data in cgData repo: ~/cgData/summer2024/exPt01Phenology
Measure data (status, size, etc.)
data in SQL database
Harvest data (IDs of harvested heads, missing achenes, etc)
detailed data in dropbox: dropbox/CGData/140_reconcile/reconcile2024/reconcileOut/2024harvestListReconciledExport.csv
data in SQL database
data in echinaceaLab package (hh.2024)
Samples collected:
82 heads harvested
At cbg for processing (counted, ready to randomize)
Products:
Publications
Thoen, R. D., A. Southgate, G. Kiefer, R.G. Shaw, S. Wagenius, The conservation value of small population remnants: Variability in inbreeding depression and heterosis of a perennial herb, the narrow-leaved purple coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia). 2024. Journal of Heredity esae055. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esae055.
Page, M. L., Ison, J. L., Bewley, A. L., Holsinger, K. M., Kaul, A. D., Koch, K. E., Kolis, K. M., and Wagenius, S. 2019. Pollinator effectiveness in a composite: A specialist bee pollinates more florets but does not move pollen farther than other visitors. American Journal of Botany 106: 1487–1498. PDF
Waananen, A., G. Kiefer, J. L. Ison, and S. Wagenius. 2018. Mating opportunity increases with synchrony of flowering among years more than synchrony within years in a nonmasting perennial. The American Naturalist 192: 379-388. PDF | Appendix | online version
Muller, K. and S. Wagenius. 2016. Echinacea angustifolia and its specialist ant-tended aphid: a multi-year study of manipulated and naturally-occurring aphid infestation. Ecological Entomology 41: 51-60. PDF | online version
Shaw, R. G., S. Wagenius and C. J. Geyer. 2015. The susceptibility of Echinacea angustifolia to a specialist aphid: eco-evolutionary perspective on genotypic variation and demographic consequences. Journal of Ecology 103: 809-818. PDF
Kittelson, P., S. Wagenius, R. Nielsen, S. Qazi, M. Howe, G. Kiefer, and R. G. Shaw. 2015. Leaf functional traits, herbivory, and genetic diversity in Echinacea: Implications for fragmented populations. Ecology 96: 1877–1886. PDF
Ison, J.L., and S. Wagenius. 2014. Both flowering time and spatial isolation affect reproduction in Echinacea angustifolia. Journal of Ecology 102: 920–929. PDF | Supplemental Material | Archived Data
Ison, J.L., S. Wagenius, D. Reitz., M.V. Ashley. 2014. Mating between Echinacea angustifolia (Asteraceae) individuals increases with their flowering synchrony and spatial proximity. American Journal of Botany 101: 180-189. PDF
Ridley CE, Hangelbroek HH, Wagenius S, Stanton-Geddes J, Shaw RG, 2011. The effect of plant inbreeding and stoichiometry on interactions with herbivores in nature: Echinacea angustifolia and its specialist aphid. PLoS ONE 6(9): e24762. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024762
Wagenius, S., H. H. Hangelbroek, C. E. Ridley, and R. G. Shaw. 2010. Biparental inbreeding and interremnant mating in a perennial prairie plant: fitness consequences for progeny in their first eight years. Evolution 64: 761-771. Abstract | PDF
Ruth G. Shaw, Charles J. Geyer, Stuart Wagenius, Helen H. Hangelbroek, and Julie R. Etterson. 2008. Unifying life-history analyses for inference of fitness and population growth. American Naturalist 172: E35 – E47. Abstract | PDF | Supplemental Material
Geyer, C.J., S. Wagenius, and R.G. Shaw. 2007. Aster models for life history analysis. Biometrika 94: 415-426. PDF | Supplemental Material
Grad student work
Drake Mullett’s PhD dissertation (2025)
Wyatt Mosiman’s MS thesis (2024)
Amy Waananen’s paper “The fitness effects of outcrossing distance depend on parental flowering phenology in fragmented populations of a tallgrass prairie forb” (with co-authors Ison, Wagenius, and Shaw) was just accepted by New Phytologist–it includes data from parents in exPt01 and progeny in exPt02.
AKA the heritability of flowering time experiment, exPt02 was designed to examine the role flowering phenology plays in the reproduction of Echinacea angustifolia. Jennifer Ison planted this plot in 2006 with 3,961 individuals selected for extreme (early or late) flowering timing, known as phenology. Using this phenological data, we explore how flowering phenology influences reproductive fitness and estimate the heritability of flowering time in E. angustifolia. In the summer of 2024, we conducted phenology between July 10th and July 19th. During measure, we visited 1,725 positions of the 3,961 positions originally planted. We measured 1,190 living plants, of which 302 were flowering with a total of 402 flowering heads (count excludes vertical developments). In the fall, we harvested 375 heads from exPt02. We observed much lower levels of seed predation by ground squirrels this year than the past few years.
data in cgData repo: ~/cgData/summer2024/exPt02Phenology
Measure data (status, size, etc.)
data in SQL database
Harvest data (IDs of harvested heads, missing achenes, etc)
detailed data in dropbox: dropbox/CGData/140_reconcile/reconcile2024/reconcileOut/2024harvestListReconciledExport.csv
data in SQL database
data in echinaceaLab package (hh.2024)
Samples collected:
375 heads harvested
at CBG for processing
Products:
Papers
Pearson, A.E., Z. Zelman, L.A. Hill, M.A. Stevens, E.X. Jackson, M.M.N. Incarnato, R.M. Johnson, S. Wagenius, and J.L. Ison. 2023. Pollinators differ in their contribution to the male fitness of a self-incompatible composite. American Journal of Botany 110(6): e16190. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16190
Reed, W. J., J. L. Ison, A. Waananen, F. H. Shaw, S. Wagenius, R. G. Shaw. 2022. Genetic variation in reproductive timing in a long-lived herbaceous perennial. American Journal of Botany 109(11) 1861–1874: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16072
Page, M. L., Ison, J. L., Bewley, A. L., Holsinger, K. M., Kaul, A. D., Koch, K. E., Kolis, K. M., and Wagenius, S. 2019. Pollinator effectiveness in a composite: A specialist bee pollinates more florets but does not move pollen farther than other visitors. American Journal of Botany 106: 1487–1498. PDF
Grad student work
Wyatt Mosiman’s MS thesis (2024)
Amy Waananen’s paper “The fitness effects of outcrossing distance depend on parental flowering phenology in fragmented populations of a tallgrass prairie forb” (with co-authors Ison, Wagenius, and Shaw) was just accepted by New Phytologist–it includes data from parents in exPt01 and progeny in exPt02.
We may have missed some other products.
exPt05:
The only experimental plot at Staffanson Prairie Preserve (SPP), exPt05 was planted to compare progeny of maternal plants from burned and unburned sections of SPP. There were originally 2800 individuals planted, but high mortality made it impractical to visit the plot row-by-row. Now, we treat the plot like demography. We use our survey-grade GPS to find plants in exPt05 that have previously flowered and add more plants to the stake file if new plants in the plot flower. In 2024, we found 17 living plants in exPt05 during flowering/total demo, 8 of which were flowering! We also observed (but did not take data on) additional basal plants within the plot boundaries that appeared to be growing on a 1×1 meter grid. ExPt05 persists!
Team Echinacea established quantitative genetics experiments to quantify additive genetic variance of fitness in Echinacea, with the idea that we can estimate evolutionary potential of study populations. The plants in qGen2 and qGen3 are plants in the 1996, 1997, and 1999 cohorts. These plants were crossed with pollen from plants in remnants to produce seed for qGen2 and qGen3, which now inhabit exPt08. Originally, 12,813 seeds were sown in the common garden. Seeds from the same cross (shared maternal and paternal plants) were sown in meter-long segments between nails. In the summer of 2024, we conducted phenology between July 10th and July 19th. A total of 3,253 seedlings were originally found, but due to gradual mortality we only searched 448 positions in 2024 for plants, and we found evidence of 314 living individuals. We identified 24 flowering plants in with a total of 29 heads, of which we harvested 23.
data in cgData repo: ~/cgData/summer2024/exPt08Phenology
Measure data (status, size, etc.)
data in SQL database
Harvest data (IDs of harvested heads, missing achenes, etc)
detailed data in dropbox: dropbox/CGData/140_reconcile/reconcile2024/reconcileOut/2024harvestListReconciledExport.csv
data in SQL database
data in echinaceaLab package (hh.2024)
Samples collected:
23 heads harvested
at CBG for processing
Products:
None… yet!
tplot
tplot is located within the bounds of exPt08. Plants of many species here were rescued from the landfill site. They we transferred as chunks of prairie sod, and individual transplants. This year during flowering and total demo, we encountered 14 living Echinacea plants from which we harvest 12 heads.
Demography data: head counts, rosette counts, etc.
demap input files have been updated with 2024
Spatial location for all flowering and some basal (total demo) plants
demap input files have been updated with 2024
Harvest data (IDs of harvested heads, missing achenes, etc)
detailed data in dropbox: dropbox/CGData/140_reconcile/reconcile2024/reconcileOut/2024harvestListReconciledExport.csv
data in echinaceaLab package (hh.2024)
Samples collected:
12 heads harvested
at CBG for processing
Products:
None… yet!
Experimental plot management:
Just like other areas of the prairie, our experimental plots need management! Here’s a list of the stewardship activities that we conducted in or for our plots during 2024:
NU MS student Maddie Sadler shows off our sweet clover haul
None of our experimental plots burned in the fall or spring prior to the 2024 growing season
Collected seed to plant in p1, p2, & p8, including:
1) Elise collected Carex brevior, Carex bicknellii, and Carex gravida from several sites and from plants that we established a few years ago near exPt01
2) Liam established Viola pedatifida production tub,
3) We collected a few additional species (including Galium boreale, Solidago missouriensis, Astragalus adsurgens, Dichanthelium leibergii, and Bromus kalmii) we plan to establish via plug in spring 2025
Psst – next year person writing this report; I ran my numbers using the script Dropbox/echProjAdmin/projectStatusReports/psr2024/wmGatherDataForReports2024.R. Maybe this can help you out.
2024 was a relatively low-flowering year in the common gardens, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t bring plenty of Echinacea heads back to the lab for our volunteers! Here are our stats:
TOTAL: 689heads
exPt01: 82 heads (11.9%)
exPt02: 375 heads (54.4%)
exPt07: 87 heads (12.6%)
exPt08: 23 heads (3.3%)
exPt09: 110 heads (16.0%)
tplot: 12 heads (1.7%)
(rounding errors in %s abound)
Our first harvest was at p2, p7, and p9 on August 19th. Our last harvest was all the way on October 3rd at p7 and p9! Those hybrid plants really held on for awhile. Unfortunately, our first harvest was not in time to harvest some heads before they begin dispersing, and there are always a couple that lose achenes throughout the harvest season before we catch them. This year wasn’t toooo egregious, but our worst head lost an estimated 85% of its achenes before we encountered it. Yikes! Keep an eye out for seedlings around (7, 2) in p2…
A few achenes shy of a full head…
One major victory from this year is that, besides a couple holes and piles of dirt, the ground squirrels were relatively well behaved in p2 this year. Typically, they enjoy ripping heads off echinacea plants and leaving stems, heads, and achenes everywhere. Based on harvest notes, in 2024 we only found two heads on the ground and only one was missing entirely. Compare this to 2022, when the team only harvested 41% of the heads they planned on harvesting due to ground squirrel activity. (Though, I suspect this may have been a blessing—they still harvested 480 heads. If they’d harvested all of them, it would have been around 1,170 heads. That’s a lot of harvesting!)
Another fun fact: The 99 south garden in p1 produced 25 heads this year, but its 99 north counterpart didn’t have a single flowering plant.
Additionally, we did visit p5 this year and found several flowering (and some basal) plants, but were instructed not to harvest them, so we didn’t.
cg heads in the seed dryer prior to going through the ace process in the lab. It isn’t every year when almost all of your gBags fit in the seed dryer at once! I bet I could’ve made em all fit if I really squeezed them, but what’s the rush?
We still have a couple of gBags from 2023 to clean, plus 10 from this year. We like keeping our volunteers stocked! We’ll send exPt01 2024 through first, just after the remnant heads. And so the cycle continues!
Every year since 1996, Team Echinacea members record flowering phenology, taking measuring data and harvest heads of thousands of Echinacea angustifolia plants in common garden experiments. These experimental plots are prairie restorations and abandoned agriculture fields that are managed as grassland habitat. Some plots have multiple ongoing experiments within. Currently, the Echinacea Project currently has 10 established experimental plots.
This project status report will contain updates on experimental plots 1, 2, 4, 5 and 8, as well as management updates for all plots. Specific reports for the remaining experimental plots can be found on separate posts including Amy Dykstra’s plot (exPt03), the hybrid plots (exPt06, exPt07, exPt09), and the West Central Area common garden (exPt10).
exPt01: Experimental plot 1 was first planted in 1996 (cleverly termed the 1996 cohort), and has been planted with nine other experiments in subsequent years, with the most recent planting being Amy Waananen’s inter-remnant crosses. It is the largest of the experimental plots, with over 10,000 planted positions; experiments in the plot include testing fitness differences between remnants (1996, 1997, 1999), quantifying effects of inbreeding (inb1, inb2), and assessing quantitative genetic variation (qgen1). There are also a number of smaller experiments in it, including fitness of Hesperostipa spartea, aphid addition and exclusion, and pollen addition and exclusion (the last experiment was continued the summer of 2023 and will have separate update posts). In 2023, we visited 3,699 of the 10,992 positions planted and found 3,118 alive. 560 plants were classified as “flowering” in exPt01 this year. This is a little less than half of the plants that flowered in summer 2022 (1,111) – an interesting note considering exPt01 was burned the spring of both 2022 and 2023. In summer 2023, we harvested 796 total Echinacea heads in exPt01. We also added 270 additional staples to the experimental plot this year, signifying positions were a living plant has not been found for over three years.
Some numbers for experiments within exPt01
Inb1: The INB1 experiment investigates the relationship between inbreeding level and fitness in Echinacea angustifolia. Each plant in experiment INB1 originates from one of three cross types, depending on the relatedness of the parents: between maternal half siblings; between plants from the same remnant, but not sharing a maternal or paternal parent; and between individuals from different remnants. All individuals were planted in 2001. We continued to measure fitness and flowering phenology in these plants. In 2023, of the original 557 plants in INB1, 85 were still alive. Of the plants that were alive this year, 24 of them were flowering; this count is down from summer of 2022 where 40 of the plants were flowering.
qgen: The qGen1 (quantitative genetics) experiment in p1 was designed to quantify the heritability of traits in Echinacea angustifolia. We are especially interested in Darwinian fitness. Could fitness be heritable? During the summer of 2002 we crossed plants from the 1996 & 1997 cohorts of exPt01. We harvested heads, dissected achenes, and germinated seeds over the winter. In the spring of 2003 we planted the resulting 4468 seedlings (this great number gave rise to this experiment’s nickname “big batch”). 1,417 plants in qGen1 were alive in 2023. Of those plants, 298 flowered this summer.
Other plots:
exPt02: To examine the role flowering phenology plays in the reproduction of Echinacea angustifolia, Jennifer Ison planted this plot in 2006 with 3,961 individuals selected for extreme (early or late) flowering timing, or phenology. Using this phenological data, we explore how flowering phenology influences reproductive fitness and estimate the heritability of flowering time in E. angustifolia. In the summer of 2023, we visited 1,855 positions of the 3,961 positions originally planted. We measured 1,283 living plants, of which 118 were flowering, with a total of 148 flowering heads. In the fall, we harvested 67 heads from exPt02. The large difference between the number of heads and the number harvested has to do with high levels of seed predation, mainly by ground squirrels. Last year, Will, Jennifer, and other members of Team Echinacea published a paper in the American Journal of Botany using data from exPt02 – check it out here! Location: Hegg Lake WMA
exPt04: Experimental plot 4 was planted to gauge whether Echinacea from small remnant populations could be genetically rescued via an outcross to larger, more genetically diverse populations. Caroline Ridley and other members planted this plot in 2008. We did not visit exPt04 this year. Location: Hegg Lake WMA
exPt05: The only experimental plot planted at Staffanson Prairie Preserve (SPP), exPt05, was planted to compare progeny of maternal plants from burned and unburned sections of SPP. There were 2800 plants planted originally, but high mortality made it impractical to visit the plot row-by-row. Now, we and treat the plot like demography. We use our survey-grade GPS to find plants in exPt05 that have previously flowered and add more plants to the stake file if new plants in the plot flower. In 2023 we found 11 living plants, none of which were flowering! We did locate one new flowering plant within the plot boundaries. Location: Staffanson Prairie Preserve
exPt08: Team Echinacea established quantitative genetics experiments to quantify additive genetic variance of fitness in Echinacea, with the idea that we can estimate evolutionary potential of study populations. The maternal parents of qGen2 and qGen3 are plants in the 1996, 1997, and 1999 cohorts. These plants were crossed with pollen from plants in remnants to produce seed for qGen2 and qGen3, which now inhabit exPt08. Originally, 12,813 seeds were sown in the common garden. Seeds from the same cross (shared maternal and paternal plants) were sown in meter-long segments between nails. A total of 3,253 seedlings were originally found, but only 385 plants were found alive in 2023. There were 15 flowering plants in 2023, and 15 heads. On a side note, one additional flowering plant was found in t-plot, and we harvested three heads from that. Location: Wagenius property
Experimental plot management:
Burned exPt01 (3 May 2023) and exPt08 (17 May 2023)
Replanted pedicularis in exPt01 and exPt10, augmenting Drake’s experimental treatments (replaced ones that died)
Broadcast seed in p8 after the spring burn and in the fall, including Comandra umbellata
Stuart trimmed flowering A. gerardii and S. nutans just north of tplot
Some plots in hegg (not exPt02) got run over by heavy machinery
We did not:
Treat sumac
Weed in exPt01 (except hawkweed)
Treat ash in exPt08, but we noticed that ash south of plot responded favorably to last year’s treatment
Details
Start year: Differs between experiment, see above. First ever experimental plot was in 1996.
Location: Differs between experiment, see above.
Overlaps with: …everything!
Data collected: Raw measuring data can be found in cgData repository. Processed data will be uploaded to SQL database. Currently, SQL database has measuring data up until 2022.
Samples or specimens collected: See above for total harvested heads in each plot.
Products: Many publications and independent projects.
Harvesting Echinacea heads in the common garden experiments this fall was quite the adventure! During the last week in June, the crew got a taste of harvesting when decapitating non-native Echinacea pallida at Hegg before they could produce seeds. Lobbing off Echinacea heads with wild abandon was quite the thrill after spending a month conscientiously navigating the common gardens and measuring plants with care. In total, we cut approximately 824 heads off of 224 flowering pallida plants.
To harvest or not to harvest? Here is Daytona before removing a pallida head.
The field crew started harvesting heads to be cleaned in exPt02 on August 10th. Our final day of harvesting in exPt02 was September 12th, and during that month we harvested exactly 480 Echinacea heads. Our bountiful harvest in exPt02 was thwarted by the local population of thirteen-lined ground squirrels. Many of this summer’s field team recounts witnessing these rodents ruthlessly rip the head off an Echinacea, look them straight in the eye, and run away. In the end, our 480 heads accounted for only 41% of the heads we planned on harvesting prior to the squirrel shenanigans.
This was a typical view while harvesting in exPt01! So much tall Sorghastrum and Andropogon at eye level.
We also harvested heads in some sites with fewer flowering Echinacea. In exPt08, we harvested 8 heads, and there were three flowering plants in t-plot that may have succumbed to the ground squirrels before we could harvest them. In exPt07 and exPt09, we harvested a combined total of 130 heads. The mysterious exPt05, which required a GPS to be found at Staffanson Prairie, had 4 flowering plants with 2 heads that should’ve been harvested, but didn’t (oops!).
The harvest of our largest experimental plot, exPt01, began on Aug 30th. The exPt01 madness did not end until our final four heads were harvested on October 10th by Gretel and Stuart, which is the latest harvest recorded in Echinacea Project history! The grand total for number of heads harvested in exPt01 was a whopping 1,494 heads.
Manogya hard at work in exPt01 (photo credits to Alex).Teamwork makes the dream work (another great photo from Alex)!
Between all of our common garden experiments, we harvested a total of 2,112 heads!
The inbreeding 2 experiment was planted in exPt1 in 2006 to determine how genetic drift is differentially affecting average fitness of remnant populations. In 2005, team members crossed common garden plants from seven remnant populations. There are three cross types: inbred (crossed to a half-sib; I), within population (randomly chosen; W), and between population (B). Each year, team members assess flowering phenology and fitness of Echinacea in the inb2 common garden.
In 2019, the team searched for Echinacea at 508 positions of the original 1443 positions planted in inb2. In total, we found 351 living plants. Four plants flowered in 2019 but only three produced achenes. Since 2006, 163 Echinacea in inb2 have flowered; they have produced a total of 336 flowering heads.
This winter, Riley Thoen is working on analyzing data and drafting a manuscript for inb2. In these endeavors, he found a small discrepancy in inb2 data: not all plants that were planted in the inb2 plot have a complete pedigree. Therefore, only a subset of the total can be used for analysis. A total of 1136 plants with a complete pedigree were planted in inb2, and of those, 277 were found alive in 2019. All four plants that flowered in 2019 have known pedigrees. A total of 138 plants of known pedigree have flowered and they have produced 284 total heads since the plot was planted in 2006. Surprisingly, within-remnant crosses have the lowest survival of all cross types, at 20%. Inbred crosses have 24% survival and between-remnant crosses have 30% survival. Riley is starting to push data analysis forwards and will certainly post updates on the flog when more discoveries are made!
Data/material collected: flowering phenology on the flowering plants (available in the exPt1 phenology data frames in the cgData repo), measure data (cgData repo), and harvested heads (data available in hh.2019 in the echinaceaLab package; heads in ACE protocol at CBG).
Products:
Shaw, R. G., S. Wagenius and C. J. Geyer. 2015. The susceptibility of Echinacea angustifolia to a specialist aphid: eco-evolutionary perspective on genotypic variation and demographic consequences. Journal of Ecology 103: 809-818. PDF
Kittelson, P., S. Wagenius, R. Nielsen, S. Qazi, M. Howe, G. Kiefer, and R. G. Shaw. 2015. Leaf functional traits, herbivory, and genetic diversity in Echinacea: Implications for fragmented populations. Ecology 96: 1877–1886. PDF
Reina, Pamela, and Mike with the photosynthesis machine used in Kittelson et al. (2015)
In 2017, of the original 1,470 plants in INB2, 473 were still alive. Of the plants that were alive this year, only 4 were flowering (0.8%) and 71% have never flowered. Interestingly, there are differences in survival for each cross level. 31% of the most inbred plants were living in 2017, compared to 39% of the plants in the between-remnant cross level. All individuals were planted in 2006.
The INB2 experiment investigates the relationship between inbreeding level and fitness in Echinacea angustifolia. Each plant in experiment INB2 originates from one of three cross types, depending on the relatedness of the parents: between maternal half siblings; between plants from the same remnant, but not sharing a maternal or paternal parent; and between individuals from different remnants. We continued to measure fitness and flowering phenology in these plants.
Overlaps with: Phenology and fitness in P1, Inbreeding experiment–INB1
Physical specimens: We harvested 2 heads from INB2 that will be processed in the lab with other heads harvested from P1.
Data collected: We used handheld computers to collect fitness data on all plants in INB2.
Products: The below papers were published in summer 2015:
Kittelson, P., S. Wagenius, R. Nielsen, S. Qazi, M. Howe, G. Kiefer, and R. G. Shaw. 2015. Leaf functional traits, herbivory, and genetic diversity in Echinacea: Implications for fragmented populations. Ecology 96:1877–1886. PDF
Shaw, R. G., S. Wagenius and C. J. Geyer. 2015. The susceptibility of Echinacea angustifolia to a specialist aphid: eco-evolutionary perspective on genotypic variation and demographic consequences. Journal of Ecology 103:809-818. PDF
You can find more information about the Inbreeding experiment–INB2 and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
Reina, Pamela, and Mike with the photosynthesis machine used in Kittelson et al. (2015)
In 2016, we continued the INB2 experiment to investigate the relationship between inbreeding level and fitness in Echinacea angustifolia. Each plant in experiment INB2 originates from one of three cross types, depending on the relatedness of the parents: between maternal half siblings; between plants from the same remnant, but not sharing a maternal or paternal parent; and between individuals from different remnants. We continued to measure fitness and flowering phenology in these plants.
This year, of the original 1,470 plants in INB2, 557 were still alive. Of the plants that were alive this year, 2% were flowering and 75% have never flowered.
Overlaps with: Phenology and fitness in P1, Inbreeding experiment–INB1
Physical specimens: We harvested 9 heads from INB2 that will be processed in the lab with other heads harvested from P1.
Data collected: We used handheld computers to collect fitness data on all plants in INB2.
Products: The below papers were published in summer 2015:
Kittelson, P., S. Wagenius, R. Nielsen, S. Qazi, M. Howe, G. Kiefer, and R. G. Shaw. 2015. Leaf functional traits, herbivory, and genetic diversity in Echinacea: Implications for fragmented populations. Ecology 96:1877–1886. PDF
Shaw, R. G., S. Wagenius and C. J. Geyer. 2015. The susceptibility of Echinacea angustifolia to a specialist aphid: eco-evolutionary perspective on genotypic variation and demographic consequences. Journal of Ecology 103:809-818. PDF
You can find more information about the Inbreeding experiment–INB2 and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
Reina, Pamela, and Mike with the photosynthesis machine used in Kittelson et al. (2015)
In 2015, we continued to study the effects of inbreeding on Echinacea angustifolia fitness. This experiment was planted in 2006 where each plant was produced from one of three cross types: between maternal half siblings; between plants originating from the same remnant, but not sharing a maternal parent; and between individuals from different remnants. We continued to measure fitness and flowering phenology in these plants.
This year, of the original 1443 plants in INB2, 561 were still alive. Of the plants that were alive this year, 8.3% were flowering and 76.3% have never flowered – we’re still waiting! Among the plants that were flowering, mean head count was 1.53 heads, with a maximum of five heads.
Products: Fitness measurements were collected during our annual assessment of fitness in P1.
The following paper was published in summer 2015 based on fieldwork conducted in 2013.
Kittelson, P., S. Wagenius, R. Nielsen, S. Qazi, M. Howe, G. Kiefer, and R. G. Shaw. 2015. Leaf functional traits, herbivory, and genetic diversity in Echinacea: Implications for fragmented populations. Ecology 96:1877–1886. PDF
Experimental plot 1 (P1) encompasses 11 different experiments originally planted with a total of 10673 Echinacea individuals. These experiments include long-term studies designed to compare the fitness of Echinacea from different remnant populations (“EA from remnants in P1”), examine the effects of inbreeding on plant fitness (“INB” and “INB2”), and explore other genetic properties of Echinacea such as trait heritability (“qGen”). In 2014, Team Echinacea measured plant traits for the 5409 Echinacea plants that remain alive and followed the daily phenology of 567 flowering heads. Echinacea began producing florets on July 1 and continued flowering in P1 until August 24. The data collected in 2014 will allow us to estimate the heritability of various traits and assess the lifetime fitness of plants from the numerous experiments.
Today was a very nice day today. There were clear skies, it was sunny, there was just enough wind to keep the mosquitos at bay, but no pollinators. Up at Hegg Lake the wild Monarda have started blooming in force, along with the swamp milk weed (which is shown below).
In the morning Sara and Sarah went out to work on their individual projects, while Lydia, Marie, Gretel, Ilse, Per and Hattie worked on phenology.
In the afternoon Gretel, Lydia and Ilse worked on the QGen- which meant continuing the pollenating that has been going on since flowering began. Myself, Sarah, Sara, and Marie started and finished measuring the echinacea in the INB2 garden! Woot!
