Greetings from the green prairie! After a few days in the field, I feel I have a good handle on the projects done in the past and the current research. My name is Greg Diersen and this is my first year with Team Echinacea. I teach Biology (happy pollinator week) at Great Plains Lutheran High School in Watertown, South Dakota. That location in NE South Dakota is about a 2-hr drive from the Kensington/Hoffman area. They both have a “prairie pothole” landscape and have many of the same flora/fauna. My initial projects for this summer are to become “prairie literate” – able to identify the majority of plants and many insects in addition to the larger organisms with which I am already familiar. As I learn the “tallgrass” plants and insects – I will be comparing and contrasting the “mixed” prairie types of Eastern South Dakota.
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So, here is my revised project plan. I spent about 2 hours with Stuart today going over the procedure, and I think the randomization aspect and sampling aspect has been redesigned a bit better. Today was a beautiful day on the prairie. Got to try out my new bike this morning, and rode to the farm in a half hour. That last hill is a killer though. This afternoon, I rode back along Unity Drive, and noticed some Brome grass that had its anthers sticking out. Mistook it for a new type of plant at first. Nice warm weather with a nice breeze, so wonderful bike riding on those gravel back roads. Pictures will come eventually!
I thought I’d also flog the decisions we’d made last week about chores. The tasks are: -Mimi So, here is my proposal for looking at aphid proportion and density in the different prairie remnants this summer, as well as the presence of spittlebugs. Please criticize and let me know what you think. For the preliminary observations done to get an idea of the number of plants with aphids, I spent yesterday morning scanning the common garden for Aphids. I looked at rows 2, 3, 14, and 40, and wen through them up to the 20 meter mark. I found 3 plants with aphids and 5 with spittlebugs. For the younger plants, I scanned rows 51, 54, 55, and 56, and found 5 plants with spittlebugs and 3 with aphids. Given that I missed some, I would say that of the 270 plants looked at, roughly 2% had aphids. Yesterday afternoon was also spent pressing plants, where I learned some of the finer points, such as ensuring that the flowers and leaves were well separated, how to fold some plants over, and to ensure that some leaves were turned over so that both sides of a leaf were captured. It is also very important to label clearly, and BEFORE you put the plant in the paper. The little miss Runestone parade is today, and it is very likely that pictures of this event will be referenced or posted in later posts. (Depending on the varying levels of cuteness). Also, here is the really cool paper on Spittlebugs, aphids and ants that I found: http://psyche.entclub.org/pdf/97/97-043.pdf Daniel R. Calling all Veggie Lovers! Anyone interested in a CSA basket? I’ll call this farm tomorrow to see if they will give us a partial summer share for the weeks we are here. They deliver to Alexandria on Thursdays. Also, Alexandria Farmers’ Market Located in Big Ole Central Park at Broadway and 2nd Ave., in Alexandria. Offering a full line of locally raised fruits and vegetables including: apples, beans, beets, blueberries, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, herbs, lettuce, onions, peas, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, raspberries, squash, strawberries, sweet corn, tomatoes, bedding plants, flowers, elk, lamb, beef and chickens. New location, South of Agnes Lake on the Central Lakes Trail, 1/2 block north of the Chamber Office/Runestone Museum And, Berry Ridge Farm Let the jam making begin! I found these farms and more at http://www3.mda.state.mn.us/mngrown Hello again, field log readers– I know it’s been a trying twenty hours of waiting, but I now have more details regarding my independent project! Just by clicking on my proposal (above) you will get an idea of the specific questions I’d like to answer, how I plan to go about answering those questions and how my study fits into this summer’s bigger picture work on competition for pollination. Take it from me, it’s a riveting read! I would greatly appreciate any questions or comments about this proposal– whether you are part of the Project or just an Echinacea enthusiast in K-town for Runestone Days, feel free to write in the comments. Thanks!
Hello, Echinacea lovers– I’m Amanda Gallinat, a recent grad of Carleton College and brand new field assistant to the Echinacea project. After a quick transition from Northfield to K-Town (Kensington, to those of you who don’t live here) I am finally settling into the daily routine of seedling searches, lunch, and more seedling searches. On Monday we paid a visit to Staffenson Prairie and memorized the scientific and common name of each plant species we saw. Just kidding! We did get an idea of the general composition of the prairie, as broken down into four groups: C3 grasses, C4 grasses, legumes and forbs. I managed to leave with the ability to identify a large handful of species, and I’ll be sure to update the Flog with my progress in learning all the rest! Over the past few days, we’ve focused a lot of our energy on seedling searches, and it seems as though we newbies are really getting the hang of the procedure. So far we haven’t searched any sites brimming with seedlings, but we have all seen some fine examples and each group has had the life-affirming experience of finding and identifying a seedling, if only once. We’ve also spent some quality time discussing independent project ideas. My primary area of interest is plant-pollinator interactions, and I am excited to spend this summer investigating how the diversity of pollen carried by pollinators differs between remnant sizes (design details will be posted soon, so check in!). This should fit well with three other independent projects relating to competition for pollination, and might give us insight into why an increased frequency of pollinator visitation in isolated populations of Echinacea does not correlate with an increased seed set. Think we can solve the mystery? Stay tuned for updates… If you have any questions or words of encouragement, feel free to leave them in the comments! |
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