Today the team went out to Hegg Lake to flag flowering echinacea along with decapitating some pallida. We were joined by collaborators from NDSU who collected pallida samples for pollen and nectar studies. It was the first day of taking demographics of the echinacea this season. Taking the demographics went well and we estimated finding anywhere between 80 to 300 flowering echinacea pallida. Later in the afternoon the team split up to work on independent projects. Including, shooting bb points with the gps, working on proposals, and flagging more echinacea.
The Alf west site had multiple echinacea angustifolia plants and a lot of tall cool season grasses. There was a natural hill, fencing, power lines, and a road by the area.
ALF East
The Alf east site had no echinacea angustifolia plants that I could see, but I saw a lot of diffrent forbs and legumes. There were also many cool season grasses which where more tall and dense near the road. There was a natural hill and trees in the area. I also saw signs of burning, for exsample there were left over burnt shrub branches and the plant life was more diverse.
Conclusions
The two sites differed. The west site which had echinacea angustifolia was less diverse compared to the amount of diffrent plants seen in the East site. The ALF East site was clearly the site that was burned. The leftover burnt branches and the great amount of plant diversity compared to the West site shows this.
