|
|
While almost any day during the summer is filled with teamwork, today was a particularly successful day for Team Echinacea 2016. This morning all of us at town hall worried that Laura might be having an allergic reaction worthy of a trip to Alexandria. We decided the best course of action was to head to the Hjelm house, let everyone on the team know what was going on, and figure out what to do from there. Jennifer generously drove Laura to Alexandria, the rest of us worked on GPSing and aphids while we waited for the sun and pollinators to come out. We regrouped later in the morning and drove out to complete another 800 combined minutes of pollinator observations in various remnants. Needless to say, before lunch we had already put a lot of teamwork into Teamwork Tuesday.
After lunch, Stuart gave us all great advice for writing successful proposals before we headed out to Hegg Lake. The rest of the afternoon was filled with measuring all of the remaining plants in p2. In pairs, we expertly worked to complete rows as efficiently as possible. At one point Stuart even exclaimed, “Now we’re cooking with gas!” By 4:15pm the team had finished measuring the entire plot, and the 50m tapes were expertly looped for future storage.
Even after work Teamwork Tuesday continued. Abby visited town hall for dinner, I picked up the CSA from Morris, Scott cooked, and Laura emerged much better after a long nap and two bowls of ice cream.
 Staffanson was beautiful during pollinator observations!
The work day started at 8am, with the team scattering to different remnants to capture pollinators in action. I was at East Elk Lake Road and decided the first plant I would visit might be the beast in the road. I assessed phenology on this plant yesterday, I believe it had 7 heads, was practically in the lane, and right before the bend in Elk Lake Road that leads to KJs. This plant has flowered many times in the course of the Echinacea project, including last year- it’s current tag number 20704. I guess I figured I’d start the morning of videos with a potentially challenging plant. But when I walked down the road with my bucket, little did I know it had been mowed since yesterday morning!
RIP to this year’s heads! After a moment of silence for the mowed plant, literally cut down in the prime of its reproductive effort, I moved on to my first video.
 “Quiet, roll ’em” Some pollinators chose to relax on my pants, instead of nearby plants, even though I told them about the Echinacea only a meter away!
No pollen here! Meanwhile, Amy worked on her compatibility experiment and Laura collected pollinators for her project. We headed home around 11:30 although work was far from over for the day. Amy headed back out in my car to continue her work at Staffanson. Scott, Lea, Laura, and Alex all stayed a little longer to work on their various projects, and the rest of us started to work on our proposals. Alex made a wonderful dinner of carrot-ginger soup and homemade bread after which we all split ways to keep working on our proposals. At dinner we decided that tomorrow we would do something fun in Alex and perhaps even make breakfast for dinner. Overall, we had a positive and productive day of pollinators and proposals! Stay tuned for those proposals which will be on the flog sometime next week.
One of my favorite activities last summer, while part of Team Echinacea 2015, was recording phenology data. We knew today was going to be the second time this week where complete phenology data would be taken for all remnant sites and experimental plots, so needless to say I was quite excited when I arrived this morning. After putting my lunch in the refrigerator, I sat at the long wooden table on the porch and looked over at the list of phenology routes. Soon teams were formed, routes decided, and after grabbing some tags, flags, and twist ties, we were on our various ways.
The list of sites to survey is extensive! I drove with Alex and Amy down to East Riley, starting at the southmost remnant site in our route. After visiting a few sites we met up with Leah and Abby at Loeffler’s Corner. I noticed Loeffler’s Corner still had many buds which weren’t yet flagged. Then the five of us headed up to Landfill to make quick work of assessing flowering day for each of the heads currently shedding pollen.
One plant that could have easily been mistaken as “Rays up 1cm” already had one anther producing pollen!
Alex working at Riley with the morning sun behind him! After lunch we had more phenology to do, and we realized that we needed to GPS the flowering plants at some more remnant sites. Experimental plot p2 still had many rows that needed to be searched for flowering plants and phenology, Alyson needed some supplies from Alexandria (for her independent project), and Alex needed to watch some of the pollinator visit videos that were recorded yesterday. We split into various teams and I ended up with James for the remainder of the afternoon. The two of us worked great together down at Loeffler’s Corner. We tried our best to find every remaining unflagged head and GPS each plant. By the end of the afternoon we were all hot and tired, but so excited about finishing the GPSing for all of Loeffler’s Corner! Back at the Hjelm house, everyone did their chores and wrapped up the long day.
While working at Loeffler’s Corner, James and I saw (and heard) four trains pass by. Needless to say we were definitely repeating back tag numbers while taking GPS points! For dinner, Alex made an amazing Ratatouille with summer vegetables and goat cheese. Many of us ended the night with showers and ice cream- perfect after a long day of phenology fun!
As the day began, we had one mission: finish searching for q3 seedlings. With Per helping out, Alyson was free to go down to the bog and begin setting up her experimental plots for removal of buckthorn. The rest of us paired off and started the work of finishing q3. Amy and I worked together. The most surprising seedling we found was 29cm west of the line.
All working in on one row of q3 Lone seedling 29 cm from the main line! After lunch, we headed down to p1 to learn how to search for Hesperostipa. This was the first time Team Echinacea 2016 worked in p1. As I worked with James the first time, we struggled to find plants in our first row. Working our way back though, we found one plant with 78 fruits.
James counts the fruits! We all spent the end of the afternoon back at q3 finding the remaining seedlings. Working in teams of three and five we wondered if we were more efficient than working in just pairs. With an odd numbered team, one person can enter data and the rest can search for seedlings. We found 644 seedlings in 849 planted segments- the winter was hard on these q3 seedlings. But the data is exciting nonetheless!
We just finished q3! When we returned to Town Hall, Laura started making an amazing curry lentil dish while Leah, James, and I participated in Leah’s “leg day” workout routine and Amy picked up the CSA box from Morris. We now have a refrigerator full of lettuce, kohlrabi, scallions, radishes, and even two summer squash.
Opening the box
Look at all of our veggies!
Echinacea Project 2016
B.S. Biology 2009 California State University Los Angeles
Masters in Education 2012 University of California Los Angeles
Research Interests
As part of Team Echinacea I am certainly interested in understanding more about how Echinacea populations respond to their heavily fragmented environment. I’m also interested in learning more about species interactions from a community level, how species influence each other, and how learning more about those interactions might contribute to restoration and conservation efforts.
Statement
I am from Los Angeles, but have been living in Spokane, WA for the last year. In addition to science I love cooking, taking barre classes, spending time with my dogs, creating random art projects (which may not be worth looking at given the fact I have no expertise at all), and teaching. I was on Team Echinacea last year as a high school teacher and I’m excited to be back this summer as I make the transition back into graduate school!
Today started on the porch. We gathered at the table and talked about the tasks at hand. The first order of business involved organizing the mapped GPS data. Maps of all the remnants needed to be checked for missing GPS points and tag errors. Next up was an R Lesson. I loved learning the basics of loading/correcting data and executing a basic statistical test. After the morning lesson, we headed out to do a bit of GPS-ing and phenology at a few remnant sites, then gathered on the porch again for lunch.
After lunch, we started by pulling invasive thistles out of p1. After walking all the rows, we pulled 117 thistles in total! The two most impressive pulls were giant roadside plants seen below.
 Matt’s huge thistle!  Danny’s bouquet
After the thistles were pulled, we moved on to hand crossing heads for Q3. On the way out to cross, I noticed some flowering grasses!
 
Staffanson pollen was organized and put into insulating styrofoam containers that correspond to each data sheet. We worked consistently until all 28 data sheets were complete, and all heads crossed.
 Crossing is almost done! Stuart passes out pollen.
At this point, I think we’ve all gotten into a good groove. Phenology on half of the sites went smoothly this morning. Ben and I worked at Landfill. I enjoyed watching the nearby herd of cows get chased out of a wetland by an angry man in an ATV while I methodically selected “Done Flowering” for a head with no more female or male florets. The sun was out but the grass was dewy. I worked on the East hill for the first time. By 11:20am, we headed back to the Hjelm house to work on phenology in p1. People trickled in from all the different routes, and by lunch all the phenology was complete. After a calm lunch, where I thought for the first time about brome-derived ethanol, the team split up to complete a few jobs. While Amy and Danny headed out to prepare for the next step in the Compatibility study, the rest of us worked in p1 or the Hjelm house itself on various tasks. I started painting bracts: Lavender along the western edge of each head’s center divide, Pink along the eastern edge, and white for pre-shriveled styles. It was the perfect afternoon for that kind of task. The sky was bright blue but punctuated with small white bursts of cloud. The air was warm and the sun turned my rubber boots into little foot ovens. But time felt purposeful and productive. When everyone had finished their jobs, we met back on the porch and debriefed the day. It was busy, fruitful, but most of all it felt comfortable and settled. We are hitting our stride as a team, working smoothly to divide tasks and communicating clearly. And I think I’ve found my new passion in field work.
 Pollinator Exclusion Bags On! Bracts Painted! Pollinator at work! Dinner Time!!
Today was all about pure phenology. We assembled ready to go at 8:30 and all got randomized assignments for phenology. We split into seven cars and seven routes, Per and Hattie helped too! We all worked with purpose until lunch, marking style persistence on each flowering head. I even found one head that had completely finished flowering and was already dry and pointy. I wish I had the foresight to photograph it, but at 11:30 with only half an hour to lunch I guess I was not thinking clearly. At lunch we shared the photos of weird flowers that were taken. The caterpillar flower at On27 was looking nicely wrapped up.
A cozy home for a creative caterpillar Another interesting head was one that Gretel found. The bracts were covered with ants and aphids.
Echinacea angustifolia’s specialist aphids infiltrate the bracts After we ate lunch, we split into five teams. One group went to finish phenology at On27. A few groups took on phenology in p1 (including 99 south). I worked with Abby to assess all of the funky records that were taken at p1. After we created two separate lists of all the flowering heads in p1, Gretel compared the lists and made a list of all of the records that were either contradictory, possible duplicates, or potentially incorrect for other reasons. After much debate about how to indicate which records were in fact correct, Abby and I visited each mystery record and noted whether the record was “G” for “good” or “D” for “delete”.
We finished up a little early and were let off for the day because of the early morning tomorrow (for all of us heading up to Pembina to look at orchids.) We headed straight off to Elk Lake for a bit of a swim, and Stuart, Gretel, Hattie, and Per showed up to take a dip with us! It was a great way to cool off after the first of two PURE PHENOLOGY days.
Sunscreen BEFORE swimming is essential
Today I swam in a lake for the first time, a lake that Katherine thought was called Elkbow Lake which caused her to wonder why there would be both an Elkbow Lake and an Elbow Lake. But in reality, I swam in Elk Lake. This was after a surprise pancake breakfast cooked by Danny. We had banana pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, plain pancakes, and banana-chocolate chip pancakes, all with REAL maple syrup. Breakfast happened around 10:30am. Lake swimming began around noon. All in all we spent a few hours in the sun. We laid out towels, tried to avoid the kids with water guns, and swam out to the little dock that had a diving board. The diving board warned us to “plan our dives” before attempting, and also mentioned that it had a weight capacity of 250 lbs. While the majority of the group continuously jumped, flipped, and dove off the dock, I tended to stay in the water. I enjoy treading water so I did that most of the time we were in the lake. Later in the afternoon we headed back to town hall to shower up and get ready for our trip to Alex. After showers, a little primping, and a set of “normal” clothes (no CBG shirt?) we headed off to two different destinations in Alex. One car headed to Taco John’s and the grocery store, one headed to RIBFEST! You can tell which car I was in. We met up with Will and ate some ribs, cheese curds, grilled corn, and kettle corn. As the clouds rolled in we decided to wrap up the night. While driving back to K-town the rain started, lightening and all. Now, I’m ending the night in town hall with some peppermint tea and a pleasantly full stomach. Good Saturday!
Just SOME of our rib-remnants…we definitely ate more than this! Ribfest entrance, notice the sign is in ALL CAPS
6/18/2015 –10 am
As I walked up to Loeffler’s Corner, I approached from the north, over the small hill created by the train tracks. At first glance, the southwest corner looked like any random piece of uncultivated land in the area. The brome and Poa were most visible from the 55, as the edges of the road were higher than surrounding land. There was a relatively short downward slope away from the road that gave way to a nice patch of prairie remnant. Walking closer to the edge of the remnant it became clear that the brome only dominated the raised edges of the road. In the depressed flatter area there was a diversity of species, some of which were prairie natives. First, I noticed the pink-hued prairie rose rising out of the assorted grasses, signaling the potential for other native plants. There is an old barbed wire fence about 20m from the road, parallel to the 55, that might create a boundary, but I decide to explore both sides of the fence anyway. There are a few trees a bit down Sandy Hill Rd, south of the 55, and one tree in the area between the fence and the 55, but very few trees overall. I begin to notice tall grass stems from the last summer season, and wonder which native grasses they might represent. I don’t wee any Echinacea angustifolia between the 55 and the fence, but I do see some porcupine grass, some yellow flower that looks to be from the Asteraceae family, a clover that may be native, and a few lead plants. I begin to look closer at the grasses and notice Dicanthelium and some bunches of grass that I assume are native. Overall, the area is slightly sloped and hilly. Moving south down Sandy Hill Rd, I notice brome and Poa are generally less visible away from the roadsides. I can see some patches of goldenrod, and in the distance some flowering wild parsnip. I look closer as I step into the remnant, and I see some echinacea plants! I move back to the road and start thinking about the potential history of this plot. Because I see less brome and Poa away from the roadside, I assume the area may have burned at some point in the recent past. I also wonder if the area was ever plowed. In general the area seems more hilly than most fields and I see some rocks which indicate that the area may not be a former field. In an attempt to asses the overall size of the remnant I move up the hill, southward down Sandy Hill Rd, just past a small crop of trees. From this vantage, I notice there is a clear southern boundary to this remnant. Beyond the trees is what appears to be an old field densely covered with alfalfa, brome and sweet clover. I see almost no evidence of native plants this far south. Therefore, this remnant is significantly larger than Bill Tom’s Gate but definitely much smaller than Staffenson Prairie Preserve. It looks to me like Loeffler’s Corner is a promising prairie remnant tucked between the railroad tracks and an old field.
|
|
