Today was quite a busy day! The team split up and took a crew over to P2 (that’s where I was) to start phenology on the flowering plants in the field.
P2 Field Flagged
The plants phenology contained information such as where it was(row and position), a twist tie color to mark individual heads to help separate them when we study, and if the plant was flowering or not(if it was flowering the first, second, and mid day fields were filled). Most of the plants were flagged with a red flag and labeled. The afternoon came fast and lunch began. Stuart talked with us to make sure that everyone knew more safety and talked about who wants to present for projects.
Laura and WesleyS.T.I.P.A.S. Selfie
After lunch another group (super terrific incredible people association squad AKA S.T.I.P.A.S.) went out to do a stipa search in certain remnants. The squad went out for the rest of the afternoon and we went to, Hegg, Loefflers Corner, and Yellow Orchid Hill. We went to each random point that we needed and checked a meter around each point to see if any stipa was growing. If it was we would record, collect, and bag it up.
After a rowdy weekend of off-road races at Andes, I started off the week by gathering data for my independent project for the first time. In the morning I headed out with Jennifer to Loeffler’s Corner East and West to catch bees as they pollinated the flowering Echinacea heads. We noted any flowering plants of other species as well and collected samples of their pollen.
After catching four bees from each site and chilling them in the fridge, I got to work scraping the pollen off each bees’ legs and stomachs. Once I was satisfied with the scraping and had deposited the pollen in its respective receptacle, I toted the bees back to where I found them and released them. It was bittersweet to say goodbye, but they’re probably happier buzzing amongst the Echinacea than with me in the basement of Hjelm.
The pollen I scraped off was then mixed with a dab of fuchsin jelly melted onto a microscope slide. This made the the tiny pollen grains stand out more under the scope. After each pollen sample was accounted for I began to do the same with pollen collected from the flowers in the field, as this will one day comprise my pollen reference library. Can’t wait to go out and catch more tomorrow!
A tiny Halictus spp. friend. Get a load of all that pollen!
A slightly blurry Agapostemon virescens pre release
Today marked the beginning of our third week of the field season. The team began the day with phenology measurements in the remnants. Today we measured 509 flowering Echinacea heads! This is roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the heads we are monitoring. We expect flowering will peak next week. Stay tuned for more information! During the afternoon, the team worked on independent projects and continued assessing Hesperostipa reproduction in remnants. Emma and Amy measured a plot at landfill east with over 100 culms… oofta!
After a nice restful weekend of hammock naps, lake swims, and puppy snuggles with our house guest, Goose, I am ready for the busy week ahead! Tomorrow promises to be filled with first or second day of flowering Echinacea, based on what we were seeing on Friday, which will mean some serious phenology being done going forward!
Team dust is working on calculating how much dust is being deposited on roadsides. We created a contraption that mimics the shape of an Echinacea,with filter paper as the “head”. On Friday, we put out these contraptions at varying distances from the road at two site. We collected them on Saturday, and are looking forward to analyzing how much dust they collected tomorrow! Stay tuned for what promises to be a fun and busy week!
Kennedy placing our dust collectors along the road at Riley.
Friday morning started with the whole team doing our first full round of phenology. I headed out with Mia to a couple of sites, we managed to find lots of new flowers and do phenology on multiple sites. At North of Golf Course, we managed to find so many new flowers that there are now 5x as many heads at the location as before! At East Elk Lake Rd, Mia and I set up some filters for Team Dust. The filters are measuring how much dust is deposited at multiple locations at different distances from the gravel road.
After lunch Mia, Laura, Kennedy, Wesley, John, and I went out to finish flagging experimental plot 2. I can proudly say that we finished flagging and the plot is completely ready! Kennedy had the highlight of her life occur while out of P2, she almost dropped her water bottle while taking a drink but made an amazing save!
Since we finished flagging before the afternoon was over, each of us split up to help others with other work that needed to be done. I went out with Jared and helped him count Stipa at Landfill. We did not expect just how many plants were at the locations we were searching at, it took a while longer than expected. Once we finished we went back to Hjelm for a little watermelon treat and some good conversation.
Glad to have had a second successful week! Catch you later,
Today was our first chance to use our newly gained phenology skills in the field. In the morning, we split up into pairs and worked together, visiting several sites and making records for any plants that are already flowering, maybe about 10% of the echinacea at this point.
I was paired up with John, which meant riding in his jeep, the famed “Bombus-mobile.” Even though there weren’t too many flowering plants yet, we were able to spend all morning on phenology, taking on a couple extra sites when we finished the ones we’d been assigned.
The Bombus-mobile at Loeffler’s CornerJohn showing off his sock full of stipa seeds. Foreshadowing!
After lunch, there were a couple of tasks that needed getting done. I headed out with a group to finish flagging p2, while others went to weed wild parsnip at Loeffler’s Corner; that stuff can give you a nasty rash! This time at p2, we used very long measuring tapes (50m) to ensure accuracy. We had saved the toughest part for last, a dead zone with nary a plant to base our measurements off of, so it was important to use a tape that could span the whole plot. The plan was a success, and we finished with time to spare!
A team of six carried the 50m tape row to row.All done! Proud Mia!p2 team minus Mia
After wrapping up p2, I headed out with Mia to search for stipa (porcupine grass) in the remnants around random points we had placed flags at earlier in the season. Any time a stipa plant was growing within a meter of a point we were looking at, we would gather data on a number of the plant’s features before collecting the fruits. This took us until the end of the day (a little afterwards, in fact; we ended up having to deal with a relatively large plant).
Measuring one meter from the point.We found a nice stipa!
And last but not least, today’s butterfly!
Another crescent, this time in a remnant. So flashy!
Today was a jam-packed day! We were greeted in the morning with John and his spiffy new flag-storing bin.
Then, we spent the morning getting trained in on phenology. We headed to Hegg Lake to hang out with some roadside Echinacea and learn about style persistence. We also had phenology quizzes, which everyone aced!
The team learns about Echinacea phenology!
At lunch, we had status updates from various teams about roadside dust and insects. In addition, we tried to estimate the number of flowering plants and flowering heads found in the remnants to date (excluding Staffanson). Wesley had the closest guess for the number of flowering plants and Stuart had the closest guess for the number of flowering heads. John had a very strong entry into the contest, but ultimately was not quite convincing enough for our judge, Jared. The numbers we have right now indicate 1198 plants and 1597 flowering heads. There will be more added to the count as missed plants are found.
In the afternoon, the team scattered to work on different projects. Stipa search was finished up and people worked on independent projects. Kennedy and I spent the afternoon in p1 looking for experimental plants for the aphid addition and exclusion experiment and the pollen limitation experiment.
It is super exciting to see all the projects for the summer start to come together! I can’t wait to see what progress we make in the next few weeks.
Another busy day for Team Echinacea! I started field work late this morning due to giving a talk at the virtual Evolution conference. Everything was pre-recorded, so it was great to enjoy listening to all the other talks in my session and learn about some new ideas related to gene flow. The title of my talk was “Outcrossing distance in space and time affects fitness in a long-lived perennial” — I’m planning to post the video on the Team Echinacea YouTube channel sometime soon so you can watch it anytime. While I was watching talks, the team was busy at work, doing phenology, shooting points, and nearly finishing flowering demo at all of the sites.
At lunch, we discussed team norms. Stuart floated the idea of turning the team norms into a blood pact sort of thing, but there was not much enthusiasm for the idea. It’s okay because one of our norms is that we want our work environment to be a “soft space” where everyone feels welcome to share their ideas, even if others don’t share the same opinion!
After lunch was the inaugural meeting of Team Dust. This is an exciting new initiative to investigate the effects of road dust on Echinacea. How much dust from gravel roads winds up landing on the plants on roadsides? Does this dust affect pollination or seed set? We intend to find out!
Here is a picture of several color-coordinated members of Team Dust.
Finally, we had our second official social gathering of the season. We ate bean burgers, air-fried fries, and (my personal favorite) Jean’s famous brownies! Delicious. We also drank and discussed several flavors of iced tea. Some of the words used to describe one of the teas included “turpentine”, “pine-sol”, “earthy”, and “savory”. Can you guess which one?
Majority of our crew started off the day in Experimental Plot 1 to do some of our first stipa searching of the year. After getting some instruction from Stuart and some practice recording together, the group split up to test out their stipa searching abilities. When only finding two plants in my first row with Emma I felt a little defeated. I learned that finding stipa is much harder than it sounds. Thankfully we got some reassurance from Stuart that some rows may only have a few or even no stipa plants in them. We continued on and by lunchtime I felt a lot more confident in my ability to pick out the stipa in each row.
Here is the elusive stipa we spent the morning searching for
A caterpillar we spotted along the way!
After lunch and a quick discussion about our insect project the team split up. Most of the crew went out to start demo at Loeffler’s Corner. I paired up with Mia and we headed out to Transplant Plot to do some quick demo. It didn’t take us to long to find those flowering plants. After finishing up Transplant Plot I set out to meet the group that had gone to Loeffler’s Corner. When I got there I couldn’t believe how much they had gotten done already! It was like a sea of neon flags, exactly what I wanted to see! I helped the group finish up then we moved on to the Railroad and Riley sites. The afternoon was filled with demo but we got so much done.
One of the flowering Echinacea we spotted at Riley’s
At the end of our very productive day we all headed home to get some much needed rest.
This morning a crew of us went out to search for Stipa, otherwise known as Porcupine Grass, in experimental plot #1. After practicing our skills together, we paired up and went searching. Each group found quite a few plants, some big and some small. Today Stuart found the biggest plant with 27 culms! Kennedy and I found many critters while searching for Stipa, including a caterpillar, a gopher, and a moth which was extremely photo shy. When I tried to take a picture of him, he decided it was better to fly into my face. Overall, it was a great morning to be out searching for Stipa!
Stipa!
Kennedy searching for some stipa…
After lunch a large group of us went out to take demos at a few sites. We started at Loeffler’s Corner and finished taking demos. I don’t know exactly how many there were, but there were plenty, believe me! My favorite part was that some had started to produce pollen and had gained their signature purple color. Then we finished demos at Railroad Crossing and Riley. Riley had my favorite flowers of the day, don’t they look so pretty?
Laura and Alex hard at work!
Once we got back, we put our equipment away and went home to prepare for a hot day tomorrow, hopefully we will stay cool!
