It’s me, Amy! It’s been a while but I’m glad to be back here in Kensington. Today, the team’s activities started out with some goat wrangling. I wasn’t there because I was bringing up some seedlings from the cities, but I heard it was pretty cool!
Later, the team split up to look for Stipa and flowering Echinacea plants in P1 and to check on ash plants in P8. My high point for the day was that I figured out how to connect my computer to the printer, but my low point was that I accidentally made it so that no one else could use the printer. Ruth graced us with her presence and at lunch we shared our project ideas.
Lastly, it was Michael’s last day on the job as a Team Echinacea intern! We concluded the bittersweet end of the era with Stuart’s chocolate cake™.
PhD Student, Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota
Research Interests
I’m interested conservation biology, especially as it relates to pollination, phenology, movement ecology, and population genetics. For my dissertation, I’m studying pollinator-mediated gene flow and trying to figure out under what conditions pollinators maintain connectivity between plant populations in fragmented environments. I think a lot about how the processes that drive how species respond to habitat fragmentation vary among spatial and temporal scales.
Statement
I grew up in a suburb of the Twin Cities and currently live in the silver city of St. Paul. I started working with the Echinacea Project as an intern in 2015. In my free time, I like to spend time outside, read, garden, and go on walks with my dog Gooseberry!
In summer 2018, I harvested 80 seedheads from 12 remnant Echinacea populations (ALF, EELR, KJ, NWLF, GC, NGC, SGC, NNWLF, LC, RRX, NRRX, YOH) to study patterns of reproductive fitness. I sampled heads in two ways – (1) I randomly selected 20% of the individuals at each site (43 individuals) and (2) I randomly sampled up to 5 individuals from full factorial combinations of high, medium, and low spatial isolation and early, peak, and late flowering time (i.e., high spatial isolation/early flowering, high spatial isolation/peak flowering, etc.) across all sites (37 individuals).
In January 2019, I dissected seedheads that I collected from the NW sites (ALF, EELR, KJ, NWLF, GC, SGC, NGC, KJ, NNWLF). I extracted the achenes by row to observe temporal variation in seed set within heads. I x-rayed the achenes and assessed seed set in January.
Xray images that show whether achenes contain embryos or not
Products: Check back with the flog for preliminary results and annual reports.
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 2018, I began a project to look at pollen movement within and among the remnant populations. To do this, I chose two focal areas, the NW sites in the study area (populations: ALF, EELR, KJ, NWLF, GC, SGC, NGC, KJ, NNWLF) and the SW sites (populations: LC, NRRX, RRX, YOH, and two large populations in between these sites). 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). I am currently extracting the DNA from the leaf tissue samples and a subset of the seeds I collected, and 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).
An Echinacea that has had today’s load of pollen fully removed by pollinators
Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 2017-
Biology, St. Olaf College, 2015
Research Interests
I’m interested in how bees move pollen between isolated plant populations and whether this movement maintains connectivity between populations, potentially mitigating the genetic and demographic decline caused by habitat fragmentation and small population sizes. This summer, I’m hoping to understand this better by starting a project to look at pollen movement within and among the remnant populations of Echinacea, and how these movement patterns relate to individuals’ spatial isolation and phenology.
Statement
Hey flog, I’m back! I used to be an intern with Team Echinacea and now I’m a grad student in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota. In my free time I like to garden, read, bake, cook, swim, run, ski, and fish! I’m very excited to be back in western Minnesota again this summer. I’m especially looking forward to collecting exciting data, learning about the exciting new projects the team is starting, eating watermelon, and writing flog posts! In the future, I hope to understand how habitat fragmentation affects the way bees move pollen around landscapes and win a trollphy at Flekkefest.
Inbreeding has negative effects on Echinacea, leading to reduced survival andfitness. In isolated populations, populations could benefit from genetic diversity introduced by mating with individuals from other populations (“outcrossing”). However, gene flow from other populations may compromise a population’s adaptation to its local environment. Amy Dykstra designed an experiment to test how mating with individuals from other populations affects Echinacea fitness. In the summer of 2008, Amy and Team Echinacea performed 259 crosses between individuals randomly selected from 6 of the largest remnant populations. That fall, Amy planted the offspring of these crosses (15,491 achenes) into an experimental plot at Hegg Lake WMA.
Every summer, including 2016, we measure plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of the longest leaf of the individuals in the plot. We also note damage (herbivory) to the leaves.
Hegg Lake WMA (Amy’s plot is visible on the horizon to the right of the lake)
Data collected: We collected plant fitness measurements (plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of longest leaf) electronically.
GPS points shot: We shot points at all surviving plants (and a few that we couldn’t find this year, but will check next year) in the experimental plot, which will make finding and monitoring these plants much more efficient in the future. The points are stored in ‘AMYSCROSSIG_20160712_SULU.tsj’ and some rechecks to those points are in “AMYSCROSSING_20160830_SULU.tsj’.
Products: Read about Amy’s analysis of the interpopulation crossing experiment in her flog post from last summer.
You can find more information about Amy’s experiment and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
In 2008, Amy Dykstra began an experiment to study how adapted Echinacea populations are to their local environments. She collected achenes from three populations distributed across a wide section of Echinacea angustifolia’s range, from Western South Dakota to our study site in Western Minnesota. She established a plot near each collection site where she sowed achenes from all sites. Since then, Amy has assessed survival and fitness traits of the individuals in her plots annually.
The exciting news about this experiment is that three plants flowered this year: two had one head each, and one had vertical development of its stem, but did not form a flowering head. All three were in the Western South Dakota plot and originated from Western Minnesota seed. This summer was the first time that Amy saw any flowering in this experiment. We hope for more flowering in the future so that Amy can analyze how local adaptation affects adult life stages of Echinacea.
Amy saw the first flowering plants in the local adaptation experiment in 2016
Start year: 2008
Location: Grand River National Grassland (Western South Dakota), Samuel H. Ordway Prairie (Central South Dakota), Staffanson Prairie Preserve (West Central Minnesota), and Hegg Lake WMA (West Central Minnesota).
Data collected: Amy collected plant fitness measurements (plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of longest leaf) electronically.
You can find more information about Amy’s local adaptation experiment and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
This experiment assesses effects of fire on the fitness of Cirsium hillii (Hill’s thistle) plants at Hegg Lake WMA. Like Echinacea, C. hillii inhabits dry prairies, but Hill’s thistle is listed as a Species of Special Concern in Minnesota and little is known about how it responds to fire. Burn and non-burn units were created prior to an experimental fall burn conducted by the DNR in 2014. That year, we mapped 28 C. hillii rosettes (basal and flowering).
We revisited the locations this year, a non-burn year, and found three flowering rosettes. Several of the rosettes we found in previous years weren’t present this year. We weren’t sure if this was an indication of mortality since C. hillii is clonal, and it’s possible that each rosette is not a unique individual. Last year, Abbey White, a masters student in the Plant Biology and Conservation program at Northwestern, she analyzed the genetic diversity of tissue samples from each rosette. Based on a conservative delineation of genotypes, she found that there was only one individual in our C. hillii “population!” If she uses a more liberal approach, there are two individuals. We don’t know of any other C. hillii populations in Douglas County and are possibly monitoring the last individual in the area.
The distribution of Cirsium hillii, a rare endemic to the Great Lakes region (yellow counties are where C. hillii has been found)
Data collected: We measured the length of the longest axis of a basal rosette and the corresponding perpendicular axis. These data were recorded electronically in a memo and are backed up in Handspring.
Products:
You can find more information about our experiment on how fire affects the fitness of Cirsium hillii and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
In 2016, we continued our ongoing study of mating compatibility in the remnants that began in 2014. This experiment is designed to assess population level compatibility and to investigate whether the difference in the timing of flowering (phenology) and the distance between plants predict whether mating will be successful, or the cross will be compatible. This year, we randomly selected 10 focal plants from remnant populations and chose their four nearest neighbors to be pollen donors.
We conducted this study in six remnant populations with approximately ten focal plants at each for a total of 279 pairwise crosses. Occasionally we were unable to collect pollen from the four nearest neighbors of the focal plant because they flowered asynchronously with the focal plant, and in those cases we chose the nest nearest individual available. Excluding all other pollinators, we performed hand-crosses between the focal plants and their pollen donors and assessed style persistence the following day to evaluate the compatibility of each cross.
We observed wide variation in compatibility among sites, with focal plants at some sites compatible with an average of 90% of their nearby neighbors and only 64% at others. Further analysis will tell what relationship this pattern might have with individuals’ synchrony of flowering and proximity to mates!
We exclude pollinators from our focal plants and pollen donors using bridal veil material, an evocative method rich with symbolism of purity and loss of innocence.
Start year: 2014
Location: large remnant populations in Solem Township, Minnesota
Data collected: We collected data about the identities of the individuals and outcome of crosses on paper datasheets. The phenology data was collected electronically. We used GPS units to collect spatial data about individuals’ location and isolation.
Products: We entered the data from 2016 and it is ready to be compiled and analyzed with the 2014 and 2015 datasets.
You can find more information about our compatibility experiment and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
To examine the role flowering phenology plays in the reproduction of Echinacea angustifolia, Jennifer Ison planted experimental plot 2 (exPt 2) in 2006 with 3961 individuals selected for extreme (early or late) flowering timing, or phenology. In 2016, we monitored the start and end dates of flowering for the 570 flowering plants (933 heads) in the plot. The first head started shedding pollen on June 22 and the latest bloomer ended flowering on August 8th. Peak flowering was on July 7th, when 810 heads were flowering. Using the phenological data collected this summer, we will explore how flowering phenology influences reproductive fitness and estimate the heritability of flowering time in Echinacea angustifolia.
Tracking phenology for 900+ heads in exPt2 was a big job. Here, three teams assess phenology on a nice day at exPt 2.
Start year: 2006
Location: Experimental Plot 2, Hegg Lake WMA
Overlaps with: phenology in experimental plots, phenology in the remnants
Physical specimen: We harvested 870 heads from exPt 2. We were unable to harvest some heads which had been grazed by rodents. We brought the harvest back to the lab, where we will count fruits and assess seed set. Jennifer previously collected tissue samples from all individuals in the plot and plans to use these to genotype all of the individuals that flowered in 2016 this year and determine their parentage in exPt 1.
Data collected: We visit all plants with flowering heads every three days until they are done flowering to record start and end dates of flowering for all heads. We managed phenology data in R and added it to the full dataset.
Products: Will estimated heritability of flowering time using the data from 2015 and presented his findings this summer at ESA (see his poster here). He is continuing this work by assessing how heritability estimates differ between two years. He is comparing flowering in 2015 (a burn year) and 2016 (a non-burn year).
You can find more information about our experiment the heritability of flowering time and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
