What an exciting day. The team spent most of the morning checking on phenology in the remnants. We split up into four teams to cover the whole study area: the Big East Team (Stuart and Anna M), the Andes + Erin crew, the A-team (Allie, Anna A., and me), and Riley and John. It was a lot of fun. More and more plants are presenting pollen, but for now most heads are still buds or are just starting to present ray florets.
This is the only picture I took today! Check out those antennae.
The most fun thing about today was that we used a walkie talkie app on our phones to stay in touch while doing phenology. We practiced our radio lingo and learned what our initials are in the NATO phoenetic alphabet.
Persistent plant growing three rows into the soybean field at On27 (Photo Credit: Mike Sierra aka Mia Stevens)
In the afternoon, the A-team went back out to do phenology at Landfill and others started searching for Stipa. We finished the day with chores.
Huge opportunity for wishes! (Photo Credit: Mike Sierra aka Mia Stevens)
I can’t wait to do this all over again on Wednesday!
Erin keeping her boy Darwin dry during some sprinkles at Loeffler’s Corner, a site in the Choo Choo Corner Route (Photo Credit: Mike Sierra aka Mia Stevens)
A steady trickle of plants on their first day of flowering continues to roll in. Very exciting!
Anna M took this beautiful picture of an Echinacea head on its second day of flowering at Loeffler’s Corner
Erin E finished surveying all of the sites where I will be doing my crossing experiment, which looks at the effects of outcrossing distance and inter-parent asynchrony on offspring fitness!
A team completed a first round of twist-tying flowering plants at p2.
The team got trained in on Stipa searching.
I looked for flowering plants at East Elk Lake Road and encountered the plant tagged 18136, which is precious to us because we have been tracking it since it was a baby seedling. It might flower this year, but the bud is so little it is hard to tell!
Just a little bud!
My department at UMN had a forum about experiences of racism in our community, following several weeks of dialogue. My peers shared powerful statements, and I am hopeful that this will lead to positive change. Black Lives Matter. Read more about the perspectives we expressed in the open letter we wrote to faculty before the meeting.
Monitoring
reproductive fitness in the remnant populations is a staple of Team Echinacea’s
summer activities. Understanding the reproductive success of plants in remnant
populations provides insight to a vital demographic rate contributing to the
persistence (or decline) of remnant populations in fragmented environments.
In summer
2019, we harvested 40 seedheads to study patterns of reproductive fitness in 8
remnant Echinacea populations (ALF, EELR, KJ, NWLF, GC, NGC, SGC, NNWLF) (the
same populations used where I studied phenology and gene flow). I randomly selected 1/3 of
flowering heads at each remnant to harvest. In addition, I collected all seedheads
from especially small or isolated remnants (specifically, GC, KJ, and the
cluster of plants just north of EELR).
In early
January, I dissected the seedheads. I extracted the achenes by row so that I
will be able to observe temporal variation in seed set within heads. Ideally,
next I will x-ray the achenes and assess seed set by observing the proportion
of achenes that contain embryos. However, the x-ray machine at the Chicago
Botanic Garden is currently out of service, so instead I may need to weigh or
germinate the achenes to see if viable embryos are inside.
Extracting achenes by row, so that I know which achenes resulted from florets that flowered early (i.e., at the bottom of the seedhead) or late (i.e., at the top of the seedhead). Tedious but possible!
Start
year: 1996
Location: Roadsides,
railroad rights of way, and nature preserves in and around Solem Township, MN
You can
read more about reproductive fitness in remnants, as well as links to prior
flog entries mentioning the experiment, on the background page for this experiment.
In summer
2019, I completed a second season of field work for a study monitoring pollen
movement between remnant populations. In summer 2018, I chose two focal areas,
the NW sites in the study area (populations: ALF, EELR, KJ, NWLF, GC, SGC, NGC,
KJ, NNWLF) and SW sites (populations: LC, NRRX, RRX, YOH, and two large populations
in between these sites). This summer, I limited the study to the NW sites. As
in 2018, I mapped and collected leaf tissue from all individuals in the study
areas and harvested seedheads from a subset of these individuals (see Reproductive Fitness in Remnants). In addition, I monitored the
flowering phenology of all of the flowering plants in these populations (see
Phenology in the Remnants).
Now, I am
working on extracting and genotyping the DNA from the leaf tissue samples and a
subset of the seeds I collected. This takes a long time! I will use the
microsatellite markers that Jennifer Ison developed in her dissertation to
match up the genotypes of the offspring (i.e., the seeds) with their most
likely father (i.e., the pollen source). To analyze patterns of gene flow, I
will assess how individuals’ location and timing of flowering influence their
reproductive success and distance of pollen movement.
In
addition, last summer we planted all of the seedlings from 2018 in the
experimental plot that John Van Kempen set up at West Central Area High School.
We will continue to monitor these seedlings to understand how pollen movement
distance (or the distance between parents) influences offspring fitness.
Here is the team after we planted nearly 298 seedlings in the experimental plot at WCA!
Start
year: 2018
Location: Roadsides, railroad rights of way, and nature preserves in and around
Solem Township, MN
Products: I presented a poster based on
the locations and flowering phenology of individuals from summer 2018 at the
International Pollinator Conference in Davis, CA this summer. The poster is
linked here: https://echinaceaproject.org/international-pollinator-conference/.
In 2019,
we collected data on the timing of flowering for 95 flowering plants (127
flowering heads) in 8 remnant populations, which ranged from 1 to 29 flowering heads.
The earliest bloomers (four plants at four different remnants) initiated
flowering on July 4. Plant 24050 in the aptly named remnant population North of
Northwest of Landfill was the latest bloomer, shedding its last anthers of
pollen on August 16. Township mowers had mowed over this plant earlier in the
season, which is perhaps why it took longer for it to sprout a new flowering
stem. Altogether, the flowering season was 43 days long. Peak flowering was on
July 19, when 105 heads were flowering.
This season
marked the 19th season of collecting phenology records in remnant populations! Though
we do not have data for all populations every year, Stuart monitored phenology
in all of our remnant populations in 1996 and in following years (2007, 2009,
2011-2019) students and interns studied phenology in particular populations. From
2014-2016, determining flowering phenology was a major focus of the summer
fieldwork, with Team Echinacea tracking phenology in all plants in all of our
remnant populations. The motivation behind this study is to understand how
timing of flowering affects the mating patterns and fitness of individuals in
natural populations.
Flowering
occurred much later this season than previous years, with peak flowering
falling a full 14 days later in the year than 2018, when flowering started on
June 20, and 10 days later than 2017. Of all the years that we data for flowering
phenology in the remnant populations in and around Solem Township, this season was
the second-latest, with only the 2013 season beginning later, on July 6.
However, this observation comes with the caveat that sampling effort varied
between years and some years focused on particular contexts, such as population
where a portion had experienced a spring burn (see Fire and Flowering at SPP). Many other plants and animals in
Minnesota seemed to have delayed phenology this spring and summer, perhaps a
result of an unusually wet and snowy spring.
Start
year: 1996
Location: Roadsides,
railroad rights of way, and nature preserves in and around Solem Township, MN
Overlaps
with: phenology in experimental plots, demography in the
remnants, gene flow in remnants, reproductive fitness in remnants
Data/materials
collected:We identify each plant with a numbered tag affixed to
the base and give each head a colored twist tie, so that each head has a unique
tag/twist-tie combination, or “head ID”, under which we store all phenology
data.We monitor the flowering status of all flowering plants in
the remnants, visiting at least once every three days (usually every two days)
until all heads were done flowering to obtain start and end dates of flowering.
We managed the data in the R project ‘aiisummer2019′ and added the records to
the database of previous years’ remnant phenology records, which is located
here: https://echinaceaproject.org/datasets/remnant-phen/.
A flowering curve (created here using the R package mateable) summarizes the flowering phenology data that we collected in 2019, indicating the number of individuals flowering on a given day and the flowering period for all individuals over the course of the season.
We shot
GPS points at all of the plants we monitored. Soon, we will align the locations
of plants this year with previously recorded locations and given a unique
identifier (‘AKA’). We will link this year’s phenology and survey records via
the headID to AKA table.
We
harvested a random sample of 1/3 of the flowering heads from each remnants in
August and September, plus an X additional heads from populations that were highly
isolated, for a total of X harvested seedheads. These are currently stored at
the University of Minnesota. This winter, I will assess the relationship
between phenology and reproductive fitness by x-raying all of the seeds we collected.
In addition, I will determine the paternity (i.e., pollen source) for a sample
of seeds by matching the seed genotype to the potential pollen donors. Doing so
will shed light on how phenology influences pollen movement and gene flow
patterns.
You can
find more information about phenology in the remnants and links to previous
flog posts regarding this experiment at the background
page for the experiment.
Products: I presented a poster based on the
locations and flowering phenology of individuals from summer 2018 at the
International Pollinator Conference in Davis, CA this summer. The poster is
linked here: https://echinaceaproject.org/international-pollinator-conference/.
Hello Flognation! Today started with moving Stuart’s herd of goats to a new paddock. Excitingly, there are now 11 goats in the herd! This is 3 more than there were the last time we moved the herd. It raises the questions, “How many goats will Stuart accept into his herd?”, “How many goats would it take to eat all the buckthorn between the bog and p1?”, “How many goats is too many goats?”, “If they chose to storm the Hjelm house, could we stop all of them?”, and “Wait are there only 10 goats inside the fence?” Luckily, all the goats were happy to move into their new buckthorn paradise, possibly with the exception of Baby, one of the newcomer goats who felt more at home with people than goats.
After goat herding, I went to go collect leaf tissue from plants in the remnant populations where I’m studying pollen movement. The rest of the team transitioned into measuring mode and proceeded to power through measuring many rows in p1. In p1, they encountered some exciting wildlife, namely this caterpillar:
After lunch, some of the team continued measuring, while the rest of the group went to collect demo data at Woody’s. Although Chekov was fussy, the demo team persisted and also encountered this important buddy:
Happy Saturday, flognation! This weekend is Flekkefest, the highly-anticipated summer festival in Elbow Lake. For the past few years, members of Team Echinacea have attended the Flekkefest festivities. It is always a highlight of the season. While Julie, Drake, and Erin went to Hegg Lake to complete the remaining pulse-steady crosses, I headed to Elbow Lake for the Flekke5k. John organizes the 5k every year and the proceeds support the impressive WCA cross country team. Each year that I’ve done the race my pace has slowed down, but I managed to come away with another troll-phy! Whew. True to theme, John sported excellent troll hair. Later, the crew plans for fireworks and other Flekkefest fun. Catch ya on the flip side!
Julie spotted this hungry caterpillar in P2 during pulse-steady crossesHuge honor to receive a troll-phy from the head Troll himself, John Van Kempen
Today was a fun and productive day. This morning, I went to the NW remnant sites to monitor phenology. I also collected leaf tissue from some sneaky flowering plants that I’ve found since the last time I collected tissue in June. Meanwhile, Julie, Jay, Riley, Erin, and John headed out to P2 to monitor phenology, crosses for the pulse/steady experiment, assess crosses from Julie’s heterospecific crossing experiment, and measure the final rows of P2. Stuart joined them later in the morning and they completed measuring the plot! Wow!
Does Ratibida pollen induce style shriveling in Echinacea? Julie is finding out!
This afternoon the team split up into three teams: Jay and Julie formed Team “Kick Ash” for Jay’s experiment looking at different management treatments on ash. They described the experience as “walking on a treadmill of trees,” but made great progress in metaphorically kicking back the advance of ash in ExPt 8 by applying herbicide treatments to leaves of plants. Team “Smoking Plants” consisted of Riley and me. We went to a spot that is north of landfill, south of around landfill, and south-southeast of north of northwest of landfill to identify plants for an experiment looking at the effects of liquid smoke on flowering. We found 100 plants that were flowering this year, counted each plant’s number of rosettes, and shot a point at each plant so that we can revisit them later. This fall or spring we’ll apply different liquid smoke and mowing treatments to assess just what it is about fire that induces flowering in Echinacea. Stay tuned for when we actually smoke the plants this fall! Finally, Team “Seed Collection” collected seeds for Drake while he is away at a family reunion.
Riley gazes at south-southeast of north of northwest of landfill
We wrapped up the day with watermelon and very impressive, definitely NBA/WNBA-worthy tosses of watermelon rinds into a five gallon bucket. That’s all for now!
I’m writing from Sacramento, CA, where I am staying for the 2019 International Pollinator Conference at UC Davis. Today I heard talks about new quantitative methods for studying pollinator ecology and I also learned a whole bunch about pollinator disease ecology. Tomorrow will be full of more pollinator-themed talks and I will present my poster in the afternoon. I’ll post a copy of my poster below. I’m looking forward to learning more tomorrow! That’s all for now,
We started the day by planting 280 seedlings at the West Central Area experimental plots. I’ve been growing these seedlings so for a project looking at pollen movement among the remnant populations. I collected leaf tissue from each seedling and next I’ll use paternity analysis to figure out which plant the pollen came from to make each seed. By planting the seedlings, I hope to see if pollen dispersal patterns are related to the survival or fitness of the offspring. Planting went great! Exceeding all expectations, everything took exactly two hours, including the drive to Barrett and back.
Afterwards, we worked on all kinds of things. In ExPt1, we finished searching for Stipa and putting twist ties on all the flowering plants. After searching in all the rows for flowering stems, we’ve found a whopping total of 42 flowering heads!!! Next, we went to ExPt2 where we found >>42 heads (~350 so far, but we only made it through row 11). We even found one flowering head on its first day of flowering!
I forgot to take a picture of the flowering Echinacea, but I also saw this Symphyotrichum flowering??
