-Steven’s Approach-
A profile of Prairie as observed by Ali Hall
Written by Matt Olhoft
“My impression is that the landscape has been carved out to make the road”. This was Ali Hall’s first thought as we stopped by Steven’s approach, a small prairie remnant located on Wolley Lake road. Steven’s approach is typical of most field approaches, being about 30 feet wide by about 40 feet long, just big enough to connect a field to a road bed. The field approach is bordered by a wheat field on the west and the road on the east.
Ali noted that there was Echinacea Angustifolia seen right away. Later the realization came that the field approach was loaded with Echinacea and that there may have been as many as 100 metal echinacea tags located right on the field approach. In fact, it was difficult to even stand in one place and not step on Echinacea. Several are setting flowers and will be in full bloom soon. Echinacea plants were in almost every square foot of the field approach.
In further observations, Ali noticed was that there were no rocks or trees present. “The area is kind of prairie like, but not really”, she said. There were several flowering plants seen, and they seem to be located on the upslopes along the ditch side and the field side. The majority of these flowering varieties seen to be birdsfoot trefoil, prairie rose, and alfalfa.
Some discussion ensued between Ali and myself as to the reason Echinacea loved this approached so much, even though it repeatedly gets run over by large equipment. We speculated that perhaps it was the soil type used to build the approach that may be a factor in why they are choosing this area.
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Turning right onto Unity Drive from Highway 27 you’ll quickly come upon a small patch of remnant prairie just off the right side of the road. The patch is squeezed in between a tree line and the heavily mowed roadside, and at first glance looks to be primarily invasive grasses. Brome, poa, and Indian grass–all non-native–clearly dominate. And creeping down from the tree line is a fair amount of poison ivy that actually seems to overtake the grasses up closer to the trees. We saw no evidence of the pale and narrow leaves of the Echinacea angustifolia poking up in between the grasses. Slightly disappointed with the apparent lack of diversity and absence of native species in this unassuming roadside patch, we were about to walk away when we spotted the soft metallic green of some leadplants crowning the top of the incline by the tree line. These native legumes are a sign of a healthy prairie, and finding them was without a doubt the redeeming highlight of our encounter with this otherwise sad patch of prairie. Upon returning to the research base just down the road and showing the picture we took of the site to Stuart, we found out that much of the remnant had very recently been mowed and the patch we were examining was smaller than it had been even since Stuart’s last visit–a disappointing fact added to our investigation. We hope that this ever-shrinking prairie remnant sees better days soon.  Snapshot of “South of Golf Course” prairie remnant off of Unity Drive and Highway 27. The summer field season is off to a great start! We have assembled an excellent team to investigate ecology and evolution in fragmented prairie habitat focusing on the narrow-leaved purple coneflower as a model organism. Meet members of the team.  Team Echinacea 2015: Danny, Matt, Ben, Will, Gina, Taylor, Lea, Amy, Katherine, Alison, Abby We started the season with tours of local prairies large and small, including Staffanson Prairie Preserve, Hegg Lake WMA, which are large and protected. Stay tuned for team-members’ first impressions of some of the nearby remnant Echinacea populations. Team-members hail from near & far: Barrett, Elbow Lake, and Alexandria, Minnesota & California, Alabama, New York, and Rhode Island. They are excited to develop summer projects and they will post their proposals here next week. Our team includes four college students, four who just graduated college, two high school teachers, and one high school student. And there are the old-timers. To get ready for field work, we took the Hjelm House out of winter storage and cleaned out our storage facilities (g3). We inventoried supplies and made signs and tags for fieldwork. Everyone got a pouch with tools and supplies and Gretel has assigned us all a data collector. This may be (should be) the last year for our trusty handspring visor data collectors. The visors are trustworthy, but the computers and software that run them are showing their age. The first main activity of the season was assessing survival and growth of 2526 plants in the Q2 experiment, which is designed to quantify the additive genetic variation in two Echinacea populations. The amount of additive genetic variation determines a population’s capacity for adaptation by natural selection. Genetic variation is very important for the persistence of populations in prairie habitat. We’ll find out how much variation Echinacea has, which will give us some ideas about future prospects for these populations in the rough-and-tumble and rapidly changing world out here. We got rained out several times this week, but managed to measure all 2526 plants. We found a few plants that escaped detection last summer and we even found one seedling. Welcome to the experiment, fellas! We’ve got our eyes on you. Overwinter survival appears to be quite good and most of the toothpicks we used to identify individual plants made it through the winter too. The tallest plants were just over 20 cm and some plants had 3 or more leaves. This is great news for plants that were sown as seed in fall 2013. Growth conditions are challenging: a cold winter with little snow, a dry spring, shading out by established plants, chewing by herbivores, … it’s a tough life for a prairie plant. All in all, it promises to be a great summer. We’ll keep you posted.
My, oh my how time flies! It seems hard for me to believe that today is already my last day. Working with Stuart, Gretel, the Echinacea Project volunteers, and the rest of Team Echinacea over the past year has been a wonderful experience. I have learned a tremendous amount and I feel very fortunate that I had the opportunity to spend time working on such a great project with such a terrific group of people! Keep of the good work and good luck Team Echinacea 2015! – Jared We had a great luncheon for our volunteer citizen scientists today. We are grateful to the incredible amount of high-quality work they do for the project. Stuart gave a presentation about our accomplishments during the past year (many) and plans for the summer (focused). Jared presented some results about the effects of fire on reproduction at Staffanson (strong). A fun time was had by all. At the luncheon we wished Jared well in his future endeavors. Friday is Jared’s last day. I has been great to work with him for the past year. We welcomed Taylor Harris to the Team. She is from Fisk University and will work in Minnesota this summer. You can read more about the citizen scientists who work on Team Echinacea in our series of profiles recognizing their hard work and dedication volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Two volunteers declined to have profiles posted due to modesty or to hide their identities as international spies–we won’t blow your cover. Read profiles here. Stuart forgot to take photos during the event. Fortunately Robin took a group photo, which we will post as soon as we get it.  Team Echinacea at the volunteer citizen scientist luncheon at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Laura joined began volunteering at the Chicago Botanic Garden in 2014 after retiring from a career at Abbott Laboratories. Though she has only been with the Echinacea Project a short time, Laura’s background in quality assurance and her lifelong interest in plant biology have already proved valuable in the lab. She has helped clean Echinacea heads, count achenes, and enter data among many other tasks. Apart from her work with the Echinacea Project, Laura volunteers with a charitable organization devoted to helping children in Lake County. This is one in a series of profiles recognizing the hard work and dedication of citizen scientists volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Shelley joined the Echinacea Project in 2015 making her the newest addition to our team of citizen scientists. During her brief time with the Echinacea Project, she has helped clean Echinacea heads and randomize achenes. Shelley has long been fascinated with prairies. She planted her very own prairie restoration and volunteers as a land steward at Wadsworth Prairie Nature Preserve. In her spare time, Shelley enjoys spending time outdoors restoring the native habitats on her property and exploring local natural areas. This is one in a series of profiles recognizing the hard work and dedication of citizen scientists volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden. We are excited to introduce members of Team Echinacea 2015. Each member has a page of introduction. Read about their backgrounds and interests:
Yay summer!
After retiring from a career as an industrial chemist, Aldo began volunteering at the Chicago Botanic Garden where he worked to restore and manage the Garden’s native habitats. Aldo joined our team of citizen scientists in 2001. While working with the Echinacea Project, he has cleaned Echinacea heads and counted many achenes. In fact, Aldo has counted nearly 200,000 Echinacea achenes! During his research career, Aldo helped develop numerous products used in the agriculture and horticulture industries. He holds more than 40 U.S. Patents! This is one in a series of profiles recognizing the hard work and dedication of citizen scientists volunteering for the Echinacea Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden. |
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