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Here’s a list of our objectives for the week. Our goal is to gain greater understanding of the ecology and evolution of plants and their associated insects in fragmented prairie habitat. This week will be a peak flowering week for Echinacea this year (1 – 2 weeks earlier that most years). We will spend most of our time observing things related to reproduction. Get down, Echinacea!
Flowering phenology–successfully mating depends on being at the right place at the right time. We can map _where_ all the action occurs later, because our plants don’t move much. Now, we have to figure out _when_ the action is happening and which plants are participating. Some plants are almost done flowering and others are just thinking about flowering.
Style persistence is a signal of which plants are not receiving compatible pollen. We can quantify SP at the same time we observe phenology. We will make phenology and SP observations in the common garden on Monday, Wednesday, & Friday and at Staffanson on Tuesday & Friday.
We will set up ~10 video cameras in the common garden each day. Each camera will be trained on a specific head to watch for pollinator visits. If we can figure out how, we will post a video online for your viewing pleasure.
The Bee Team will mark bees on Monday morning and probably Tuesday too. They will train all of us to make good observations and record high-quality data. We will do that all week. Here’s the link to _the_ online bee identification resource for Eastern North America. This is a great resource!
http://stri.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=apoidea#Identification
(It’s certainly good enough for our purposes in western Minnesota.)
The KAP team will take photos of our remnants, if the wind allows. They will be all ready to go when it does. We’ll be keeping track of local weather. Here are some key resources:
Kensington general forecast and 48-hour surface wind forecast (from NWS in Minneapolis).
Hoffman general forecast and 48-hour surface wind forecast (from NWS in Grand Forks).
Current conditions at nearby weather stations.
We will take head photos for symmetry measurements in the afternoons. Colin, now that you made one rig, could you easily & quickly make another one? If so, we could have two pairs of folks taking photos.
One afternoon we will take data on herbivory of ray florets in the common garden.
If weather on Thursday permits, we will take a field trip to visit the Western Prairie Fringed Orchid and help Gretel monitor her long-term experiment.
If it rains this week, we will weed sweet clover & thistle in the CG right after the rain stops–or during if there is no thunder. Bring gloves!
Finally, everyone will post a profile with a photo.
I am looking forward to the coming week! I’d better get some sleep so I can appreciate it.
We have finished two weeks of the summer field season and I feel like we haven’t settled into a routine because we have been doing something new and different each day. It’s exciting.
Here’s a recap of accomplishments this past week…
Last week we finished searching for plants in the recruitment experiment. One plant (of ~1000 still alive) is flowering this year; it’s the first plant in the experiment to flower! The plant germinated in spring 2001.
Our high tech endeavors are underway and we have computer infrastructure to support them. Josh has networked the computers, hard drives, and printer. After some anxiety-inducing modifications to the video camera power supplies, we started taking video of pollinators & other visitors of Echinacea heads. Andy previewed a video this morning and it looks great! We still need to get more reliable power sources, but video cameras sure beat sitting on a bucket.
Colin has developed a camera rig to take shots of Echinacea heads in the common garden. We will be able to quantify many aspects of radial symmetry in the heads with the resulting digital images.
We assessed herbivory of ray florets in the common garden. We also looked at damage to disc florets. Jameson began to classify types of damage, but there weren’t that many heads with damage to the disk florets.
The KAP team (Julie, Rachel, and Josh) has made progress. Wind conditions have kept the kites on the ground most days, but they are making ground markers and have prepared the camera and rig. I flew the Sutton FlowForm 16 today in 12-16 mph surface winds at the park in Hoffman. Wow, it can pull. Yesterday, Gretel & I flew the G-Kites Dopero in somewhat variable winds. It was nervewracking.
The Bee team (Amy, Ian, Jameson, & Gretel) has abandoned my (bad) idea of watching bees through binoculars in favor of their much better idea. They are marking Agapostemon virescens individuals with acrylic paint and watching them when they are on the heads. They marked two bees on Friday and saw one on Saturday. Cool. They also have a slick form for entering observations.
We all have been making systematic observations of flowering phenology and style persistence of all plants in the common garden and along a transect at Staffanson Prairie Preserve.
In case anyone was wondering about the ostensibly narcissistic streak in recent posts, I _asked_ everyone on the team to post a profile with a photo.
Good work team Echinacea! We are making great progress in our quest to gain greater understanding of the ecology and evolution of plants and insects in fragmented prairie habitat.
Major initiatives for this week:
Flowering phenology in the CG: get the visors ready for data collection on Tuesday & Thursday AM.
Herbivory of rays in CG: get the visors ready for data collection. This data we could collect in the afternoon. We’ll probably get better quality data if we do it separately from the phenology data collection.
Style persistence in CG: This data is best collected in the morning. Probably better to collect separately from phenology, but they could go together.
FA: Make bracket for camera and design sampling scheme to take digital images of heads (esp. rays) to quantify symmetry.
Pollinator observations in CG
1. Use video cameras to quantify visitation. The power source is an issue. Batteries would be much easier to use than electric cords. 12V DC sources are cheap & readily available. Andy, what is the voltage output from the transformers on the AC plugins?
2. Use binoculars to estimate flight distances.
Set up computer infrastructure: set up computer network (printer, visor sync station), set up hard drives (is 2.5 GB enough?), get software for raw digital images (UFRaw or irfanview), determine how to back up video footage efficiently.
Aerial photos. This can be an afternoon activity. We need to figure out camera settings, ground markers, and practice.
Style persistence in SPP. Collect data every 3rd day.
Move mowed duff in CG.
Discuss projects & teams with everyone.
These could wait:
Finish data collection in last 3 recruitment experiment plots.
Trimble.
Collect CG tissue.
For the past 12 years I’ve been studying Echinacea angustifolia on this little part of the prairie and I thought I knew a few things about the timing of its flowering. Every year, I’ve started the field season before flowering begins, so that we have time to get settled in and trained before we start taking data. Just after solstice has been our typical time to start. This year, I had originally planned the first day of work to be 24 June. Ruth & I thought we would want a week to search for seedlings, so we decided 18 June. That start date fit in with Dennison’s summer schedule too. But we were a little worried that we may not have enough to do before flowering started.
Echinacea in the common garden started flowering a lot earlier than normal this year. Arg. We are behind in the sense that our equipment hasn’t all arrived, we don’t have all of out data collection protocols, the crew isn’t a well-oiled machine yet, we missed the first days of flowering phenology data for a few plants, our computers aren’t set up, reinforcements from Illinois (Gretel, Per & Hattie) arrived only hours ago, etc.
On one hand, I am bummed to feel behind and know that we need to catch up. This unanticipated stress, frantic rushing about, and sleeplessness is unpleasant. However, we will do the best we can, problem solving and thinking on the feet are the name of the game in field biology!
On the other hand I am exhilarated. The unknown is the raw material of science. Research is learning about things we don’t understand, gaining new knowledge, making discoveries! We have learned so much about Echinacea and from that new knowledge, we have gained insight into basic biological processes common to other species. But, there is still much to learn, even very basic things, such as what causes variation in flowering time.
Well, when I feel like a headless chicken running about, then I know it’s time to make a list. Hmm, a bummed, sleepless, exhilarated, headless chicken. I’ll write the list tomorrow.
Mowing went well today. The crew did a good job. I have some notes:
Rows 10 – 33 got blasted from the east by the grass clipping etc from the mower.
Rows 35 – 56 got blasted from the west.
Row 34 didn’t get blasted. Row 34 was chosen at random, row 38 was chosen last year. Each year before 2006 I blasted the whole garden from either the east or the west. That was too inefficient.
Here’s the schedule of not-to-be-blasted rows for the next few years:
year row
2008 31
2009 39
2010 36
2011 28
2012 34
2013 27
2014 32
2015 29
2016 35
2017 37
2018 30
I ran over 4 flags (loose or bent) and didn’t hit any rocks. There aren’t very many new gopher mounds. Look for new mounds far N, Row ~ 35, Pos ~925, and Row 56. I don’t think I ran over any Echinacea plants. I was running blind in R~40-42, up to P935, and P865 in R10-12. Also, I had to add flags in R 10 far N. The brome is flowering super thick this year. The CG looks so different from last year because of the brome. Some brome infl are eye-level W of the garden in pos <910! Those fence posts in R 13.5 and ~38.5 are annoying and must go. The cottonwoods need to go to too--too much shade. Deal with trefoil & phalaris.
I can think of some things I will do differently next year. I’ll only do them next year if I remember. Next year I’ll have to look at this flog to find the unblasted row. Here’s the plan.
Preparation:
in fall, leave flags in the 98 garden or put in staples
get flags delivered in plenty of time (consider color coordination)
30″ are much better in non-burn years
sharpen blade, buy gas
mow entry paths & set up stairs
flag perimeter & unblasted row
mow perimeter
mow aisle on both sides of unblasted row
Orientation (print maps beforehand):
wear safety glasses, ear protection optional
place flags 10cm N of each plant
search for plants or staples
emphasize that plants can be difficult to find, but the goal isn’t to find every one (measure if necessary to get good coverage in thick areas)
walk E & W in unmowed areas & anywhere on mowed areas
lift legs over rows
pull pins & collect plastic
start flagging in positions 860, 935, 960, 983, then flag on either side of unblasted row
coordinate so rows are flagged before mowing
after a few rows, get folks working rows 50 – 56 & 10 – 16. Don’t bother flagging cg96.
Remove duff from all plants in an organized fashion.
Equipment:
flag bags
meter sticks (we need more, we only have six)
safety glasses
ear protection
mower sharp blade
gas
gloves for all & gloves for SW. Get the XL; L is too small.
Plan to spread mowing over two days to avoid exhaustion. Sharpen blade in between.
After duff is removed weed thistles, sweet clover, trim shrubs & trap gophers.
To do–cut cottonwoods, ashes in ditch, trees E of CG.
I just finished mowing paths between rows in the common garden. I was so pooped by the time I pushed the mower to the truck, it took me 15 minutes to psych myself up to lift it into the truck (it didn’t help that I laid down to psych myself up). I would’ve fallen asleep listening to the chipping sparrows and a N. oriole, but a mosquito told me she was hungry.
Now I am getting psyched to go back to the CG to look at the flowering plants for our phenology observations. I am shocked how early they are flowering this year. I peeked at the CG on Monday and thought we’d have a good week before they’d start to flower. I don’t think they’ve ever started flowering by solstice before. Recently, the field season has started after the solstice.
These long days are a double-edged sword. We get all this daylight, but that means we can do field work for many more hours. I should clarify. The crew finished before 4:30 and went home–I can work for many more hours.
> (983 – 860 + 4) * (56-10)
[1] 5842
That’s how many meters I mowed today. Well, I have to subtract
> (960 – 935) * 8
[1] 200
I carried the mower 200 meters around the 99 garden (in 8 trips). Next mower I get should be lighter than what we have now, a snapper 21″ steel deck, self-propelled “M” model with a Tecumseh 6.0 hp engine.
Gosh, I was about to say something cliché about getting old & tired, because this seems like such a big job. But back when I was younger (e.g. last year) the garden was smaller!
OK, all this thinking is making my shoulders and back sorer–back to the common garden!
PS: Stuart, remember to bring the gas can back!
Hey, it’s 7:47 in the morning in Minnesota. Notice the timestamp on the blog entry. How do we make the timestamp correct?
The field season is off to a great start. We’ve spent time collecting data on two experiments and we are getting new equipment & gear organized. Not everything is roses though.
We have determined survival of plants in our experimental “recruitment plots.” Seeds were planted during fall 2000, 2001 & 2002 in plots with different prescribed burn treatments. We have kept track of survival every spring. Five plots down, four to go! We will write down our equipment list & the protocol for this experiment later this week.
We searched for and found seedlings in three remnants (sap, nwlf & kjs). The goal is to find plants of the 2007 seedling cohort and determine their survival this summer & in future years. We want to compare seedling recruitment & juvenile survival from year to year and among remnants. This project will offer insight into the differences in population dynamics in small & large remnants. We’ll also be able to gauge masting in Echinacea.
Distinguishing between seedlings and small plants is difficult. Some plants were obviously seedlings because we could see green cotyledons or brown shriveled up cotyledons. Other plants were the same size as seedlings, but were obviously not seedlings because we could see remains of a dried up leaf from last year. Then there were some that we just weren’t sure about: small plants with no leaves from last year and no cotyledons.
Some problems are impossible to solve right now (distinguishing seedlings). Other problems are solvable–and we have a lot of them. We have many new gadgets to get working this summer: kites, digital cameras, video cameras, high-precision GPS, etc. We will push some of our equipment to the limits (like using binoculars to follow flying bees). We’re feeling a bit overwhelmed and worried that we won’t have everything figured out before flowering starts. And flowering will start soon–one plant at kjs (#1919) looks like it could start flowering tomorrow.
Fortunately, field biologists are a resourceful lot. It is no surprise that Andy & Josh surmounted the problem that we had with downloading large video files.
We will face many challenges in our pursuit of efficient data collection in demanding, harsh field conditions far away from civilization with pressing time constraints. But science must move forward! New discoveries await! We are up to the challenge! Stay tuned to the Echinacea field log to read about new adventures of the Echinacea team…
It was raining first thing in the morning so we organized visors, the Trimble GeoXH, fanny packs, radios, & other supplies. We have so many batteries of so many different types!
After the rain stopped we visited two remnants: BTG, one of the smallest, and the Staffanson Prairie Preserve, our largest. Ray florets on some Echinacea plants were sticking up. That’s early!
Here’s a list of some of the showy flowering plants we saw at Staffanson:
Heliopsis helianthoides
Galium boreale
Phlox pilosa
Rosa arkansana
Calylophus serrulatus
Delphinium virescens
Coreopsis palmata
Zigadenas elegans
Thalictrum dasycarpum
Asclepias ovalifolia
It was quite windy, so we didn’t see many pollinators. I remember one Auglochlorella striata and a few large syrphid flies.
After lunch we searched for plants in one recruitment plot (#1 Eng Lake). The winds picked up to 25-30 mph with gusts around 45 mph (43 mph was recorded at the Alex airport).
Back at the house we dealt with paperwork and practiced using the visors.
I am looking forward to a good summer!
Folks arrived Sunday afternoon & evening. They moved into the condos at Andes Tower Hill. It seems like the housing will be good, but they have only 8 beds–we’ll need more. Also the wireless wasn’t working.
Here’s a photo of everyone who had arrived by 6 pm.
 L to R: Amy, Ian, Andy, Colin, Stuart, Rachel & Julie (Jameson & Josh were on their way.)
I gave them directions to Pete’s County Market for food shopping. They should be settling in–by now, they should be asleep.
I am not asleep. I just moved furniture around so I could sit down at a computer next to the new dsl modem. I figured out how to connect the computer and here I am.
Here’s the recap on the trip from Illinois: Andy picked me up after an arduous drive through Chicago. We made it to my folk’s house by 11:30 pm. Saturday morning at 8 we picked up equipment from Ruth at the U of MN: computer, printer, survey station accessories (the station itself is in the shop), keys, dissecting scope, etc. Then I went to Metal detectors of Minneapolis at 38th & Cedar and bought a metal detector. I drove to my cousin Kory’s graduation party in St. Cloud with my mom and from there we drove to the farm.
We’ll start on Monday morning at 8:30. It might rain.
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L to R: Amy, Ian, Andy, Colin, Stuart, Rachel & Julie (Jameson & Josh were on their way.)
