I am an undergraduate at the University of California Santa Cruz, where I’m going into my third year in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. I am an REU intern with the Echinacea Project.
Pronouns: she/they
Research Interests
I am interested in plant community ecology and entomology–particularly plant-insect interactions. I am also very interested in gaining experience with restoration methods.
Statement
I’ve lived in northern California throughout my life, and currently go to school on the central coast, so I’m very excited to spend the summer exploring the prairie! In my free time, I enjoy reading, drawing, knitting, and juggling.
Maddie and Kyra went to two remnant sites in Aanenson and West Aanenson to observe individual characteristics and compare the differences between the two sites and transects within. The transects at both sites were located on a natural hill, however the transects at West Aanenson were closer in proximity to a roadcut. Among both sites, it did not look like there were any recent burns. We observed more echinacea plants among transects in Aanenson in comparison to the transects in West Aanenson. Both sites seemed to have no history of agricultural use, though there were active corn crops across the road. We observed a larger diversity of plants at the Aanenson site, and we hypothesize that this is due to a difference in land management techniques as sites are owned by different agencies, though overall there are more similarities than differences between the two sites.
We saw many different plants at the different sites including:
Site observations by Grace K., Aaron, and Brittany
This site was a small prairie remnant on the upwards slope on a roadside ditch. The opposite of the road was a large field of predominantly bean crops, while the remnant side was only agriculturally disturbed far up over the slope. Our immediate impression of the site was a clear distinction between the downhill slope of the ditch by the road, and the remnant on the upwards side. Along the roadside and down the roadside slope of the ditch, there was a large community of forbs and non-native plants. This included large quantities of brome and cool season grasses, as well as clover, alfalfa, and roses. However, the prairie remnant contained mostly warm season grasses and echinacea seedlings, and there was significantly more exposed ground. This created a visual juxtaposition between thicker and greener vegetation on the left side, with slightly sparser vegetation with more ground and dead growth on the right. This dead growth led us to believe the site has not been burned this past season. Once the ditch flattened out at the top, the brome reestablished.
We hypothesized that the steep upwards slope of this section of the ditch made it untenable for plowing, and it was left undisturbed as the surrounding land was developed for agriculture. We also hypothesized that the increased disturbance immediately along the road may also benefit the growth of clover and forbs.
Site: Loeffler’s Corner West (LCW)
Site observations by Grace K., Aaron, and Brittany
This site is a remnant of the prairie, found on the corner of two roads. Both sides of the road were nonagricultural sites. There were signs of terraforming on the land. A clear distinction of plant life between the ditch and prairie remnant was clear. Much of the ditch on the road side was populated with tall brome grass, with some native grasses in the mix. The landscape of the site was steep and near a lake, making it unfit for cattle grazing and agricultural needs. The site was populated with many warm season grasses like porcupine and big blue. As well, was a significant amount of dried out plant life suggesting that there was not a control burn recently.
We hypothesized that due to the steep nature of the land and the wetland surroundings, it allowed for the land to be untouched by farmers and cattle alike. We also hypothesized that due to the artificial terraforming to build the nearby road, it allowed for non-native species of plant to populate the roadside of the ditch.
I am a freshman at the University of Minnesota Morris majoring in Chemistry.
Pronouns: He/Him
Research Interests
I’m interested in learning new abilities while also recieving new knowledge about the place that surrounds me. I think is very important to know where you are in the world and know about the wonderful things that are around you!
Statement
I am originally from Zacatlan, Puebla, Mexico and I lived there until June 2023 when I moved to Morris, Minnesota. I enjoy playing video games, hanging out with my friends, drinking coffee, reading and exploring new places, I also really like theater, robotics, and speech. I think the worst thing you can do is miss in an opportunity to learn new things and meet new people. I am very excited to be part of the Echinacea Project!
We visited the sites East Elk Lake Road and KJ’s . Both sites were small, bordering on either mowed private property or agricultural fields. We hypothesize that neither site has been burned recently, because there was remnants of old plant matter and the presence of fairly large trees and scrubs. For legumes, there was veiny peas, but no clover. For cold grass, there was brome and porcupine grass, and for warm, there was big blue grass. Otherwise, there were yellow asters and prairie roses.
KJ’s was extremely small, wedged between the road and the tree line, and was probably too small the ever consider planting. There was also a large animal den/hole and turkeys near the road at KJ’s. We also found an old flag at KJ’s, possibly demarking an old transect. In terms of legumes, we found clover, veiny pea, and alfalfa. For cold growing grass, there was lots of brome on the roadsides. However, there was not a lot of big blue grass for warm growing grass. There was also poison ivy, prairie roses, milkweed, and thistle.
EELR had many round bulbs on the plant matter, we hypothesize that these are wasp galls of some sort. EELR was much larger, with a higher diversity of plants, and likely was preserved because it was too steep to plow. Between the two sites, there was a fair number of trees, many of them pine, especially at KJ’s. There was evidence of significant animal activity, including a section of flattened grass where an animal, probably a deer, bedded down for the night, bordering on one of the segments at EELR.
Matted section of grass at the fourth segment of transect 131 at EELRFound flag at KJ’s along the eastern section, near the two tract roadTurkeys seen on the side of the road at KJ’sGall found on woody plant in many sections of EELR
I am a student at Alexandria Area Highschool. I am going to be a Senior for the 2025-2026 school year.
Pronouns: He/Him
Research Interests
This summer I hope to learn more about plant biology and evolution. I have lived here all my life and I do not know much about the land around me, but I am excited to learn.
Statement
I am from Alexandria, Minnesota, and I have lived here all my life. After high school I hope to attend the University of Minnesota Twin Cities for Mechanical Engineering. I have been involved in the outdoors for most of my life. I am an Eagle Scout as of 6/15/2025 from Troop 496 Carlos/Miltona. When I am not in the field I enjoy playing violin, throwing on the pottery wheel, working out, and biking.
I am a post-baccalaureate research intern with the Echinacea Project and will be moving between the University of Minnesota and the Chicago Botanic Garden. I graduated in May 2025 from the University of South Carolina with a degree in Environmental Science and Biology. My research with the Echinacea Project will be focused on the experimental plots.
Pronouns: she/her
Research Interests
I’m interested in all sorts of plant ecology. I especially am interested in plant-pollinator interactions and fire ecology. I hope to learn more about conservation and restoration efforts in prairie ecosystems.
Statement
I am from New Jersey and went to college in South Carolina. In college, I was a researcher for a plant/insect ecology lab and I studied abroad in Ecuador’s capital city, Quito, and the Galapagos Islands. I did my honors thesis on the effects of humidity on the attachment strength of mucilaginous seeds, a seed trait found all across the world. I am a fan of all sorts of creatures and often pause to take pictures of everything. I like to read, bake, nap, and catch lizards.
I’m the outgoing lead research assistant on the Echinacea Project. I started as an REU student in 2021, stuck around to work in the lab, came back for summers in the intern role, and got a master’s degree out of the arrangement, to boot! This June marks four years for me with Team Echinacea, and it was four years well spent. I’ll be moving to the San Francisco Bay Area later this summer, and will dearly miss the summer crew, the field work, and the prairie. But I’m looking forward to seeing everyone the first week and wishing you a fantastic summer! Don’t be a stranger, now.
Pronouns: she/her
Research Interests
My thesis focused on the heritability of fire-stimulated flowering in Echinacea, which I think is pretty neat. I enjoyed using our awesome experimental plots to look into how parent and offspring plants might be behaving similarly (or not!) in response to burns. And of course, fire itself is an amazingly cool experimental treatment. How lucky I’ve been to work with it. In general, I’m interested in population dynamics, cue-based/synchronized reproduction (masting, and more?), and fire ecology.
Statement
I’m from Chanhassen, MN, but I’ve spent the last 6 school years in Chicagoland. I feel lucky to have spent my summers up in Minnesota, as I love the prairie and the lakes and the people. I love to cook, I love to fish, and I love to fish and then cook the catch! I’d highly recommend this to current and future team members. Team Echinacea has canoes!
This one got sent back into the lake instead of going in the frying pan. Go make some more bass! (5.9 lbs, but who’s counting)
I am an graduate student at Northwestern University / Chicago Botanic Garden, pursuing a M.S. in Plant Biology and Conservation, and have worked as a research assistant and a lab manager for Team Echinacea. My thesis research will focus on Asteraceae species presence and richness in remnant and restored prairies in western Minnesota.
Pronouns: She/They
Research Interests
I am very much interested in restoration ecology and land management. Prairies have always had a special place in my heart and were one of the first ecosystems I truly fell in love with. I hope to create practical and functional conservation plans for protecting our prairies, the most endangered ecosystem in the world, in the future.
Statement
I grew up in southeast Iowa, but have been living in Illinois for the past 3 years. When I’m not working I love to be paddle boarding, hammocking, cooking, reading, or snuggling my 6-year-old tuxedo cat named Mo.
My cat Mo!Me at the Orchid Show at Chicago Botanic Garden
Amy Waananen’s just had a paper published in New Phytologist. She reports how the difference in flowering time of a plant’s two parents influences the plant’s fitness. Many researchers have investigated how differences in the location of parents (close or far) influences progeny fitness. Few, if any, have investigated how differences in flowering time affects progeny fitness.
Differences in flowering time are not as straightforward as differences in location. In space, parents can be far or close and we use distance to measure it. To state the obvious, negative distances do not makes sense. In time, parents can be far (asynchronous) or near (synchronous). But maternal plants can be earlier or later than paternal plants. This aspect of distance in time is fundamentally different than distance in space. Amy used positive and negative values to indicate which parent flowered earlier. Remarkably, this perspective really mattered to the fitness of progeny. Wow!
Amy’s discovery is really cool, it’s a surprise, and it’s a useful contribution to basic science. Amy also suggested some non-intuitive management strategies that can help promote plant fitness and resilience of populations in the face of changing environments.
Here’s the citation:
Waananen, A., Ison, J.L., Wagenius, S. and Shaw, R.G. 2025. The fitness effects of outcrossing distance depend on parental flowering phenology in fragmented populations of a tallgrass prairie forb. New Phytologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70240
