Today was our first chance to use our newly gained phenology skills in the field. In the morning, we split up into pairs and worked together, visiting several sites and making records for any plants that are already flowering, maybe about 10% of the echinacea at this point.
I was paired up with John, which meant riding in his jeep, the famed “Bombus-mobile.” Even though there weren’t too many flowering plants yet, we were able to spend all morning on phenology, taking on a couple extra sites when we finished the ones we’d been assigned.
The Bombus-mobile at Loeffler’s CornerJohn showing off his sock full of stipa seeds. Foreshadowing!
After lunch, there were a couple of tasks that needed getting done. I headed out with a group to finish flagging p2, while others went to weed wild parsnip at Loeffler’s Corner; that stuff can give you a nasty rash! This time at p2, we used very long measuring tapes (50m) to ensure accuracy. We had saved the toughest part for last, a dead zone with nary a plant to base our measurements off of, so it was important to use a tape that could span the whole plot. The plan was a success, and we finished with time to spare!
A team of six carried the 50m tape row to row.All done! Proud Mia!p2 team minus Mia
After wrapping up p2, I headed out with Mia to search for stipa (porcupine grass) in the remnants around random points we had placed flags at earlier in the season. Any time a stipa plant was growing within a meter of a point we were looking at, we would gather data on a number of the plant’s features before collecting the fruits. This took us until the end of the day (a little afterwards, in fact; we ended up having to deal with a relatively large plant).
Measuring one meter from the point.We found a nice stipa!
And last but not least, today’s butterfly!
Another crescent, this time in a remnant. So flashy!
Today was a jam-packed day! We were greeted in the morning with John and his spiffy new flag-storing bin.
Then, we spent the morning getting trained in on phenology. We headed to Hegg Lake to hang out with some roadside Echinacea and learn about style persistence. We also had phenology quizzes, which everyone aced!
The team learns about Echinacea phenology!
At lunch, we had status updates from various teams about roadside dust and insects. In addition, we tried to estimate the number of flowering plants and flowering heads found in the remnants to date (excluding Staffanson). Wesley had the closest guess for the number of flowering plants and Stuart had the closest guess for the number of flowering heads. John had a very strong entry into the contest, but ultimately was not quite convincing enough for our judge, Jared. The numbers we have right now indicate 1198 plants and 1597 flowering heads. There will be more added to the count as missed plants are found.
In the afternoon, the team scattered to work on different projects. Stipa search was finished up and people worked on independent projects. Kennedy and I spent the afternoon in p1 looking for experimental plants for the aphid addition and exclusion experiment and the pollen limitation experiment.
It is super exciting to see all the projects for the summer start to come together! I can’t wait to see what progress we make in the next few weeks.
Another busy day for Team Echinacea! I started field work late this morning due to giving a talk at the virtual Evolution conference. Everything was pre-recorded, so it was great to enjoy listening to all the other talks in my session and learn about some new ideas related to gene flow. The title of my talk was “Outcrossing distance in space and time affects fitness in a long-lived perennial” — I’m planning to post the video on the Team Echinacea YouTube channel sometime soon so you can watch it anytime. While I was watching talks, the team was busy at work, doing phenology, shooting points, and nearly finishing flowering demo at all of the sites.
At lunch, we discussed team norms. Stuart floated the idea of turning the team norms into a blood pact sort of thing, but there was not much enthusiasm for the idea. It’s okay because one of our norms is that we want our work environment to be a “soft space” where everyone feels welcome to share their ideas, even if others don’t share the same opinion!
After lunch was the inaugural meeting of Team Dust. This is an exciting new initiative to investigate the effects of road dust on Echinacea. How much dust from gravel roads winds up landing on the plants on roadsides? Does this dust affect pollination or seed set? We intend to find out!
Here is a picture of several color-coordinated members of Team Dust.
Finally, we had our second official social gathering of the season. We ate bean burgers, air-fried fries, and (my personal favorite) Jean’s famous brownies! Delicious. We also drank and discussed several flavors of iced tea. Some of the words used to describe one of the teas included “turpentine”, “pine-sol”, “earthy”, and “savory”. Can you guess which one?
Majority of our crew started off the day in Experimental Plot 1 to do some of our first stipa searching of the year. After getting some instruction from Stuart and some practice recording together, the group split up to test out their stipa searching abilities. When only finding two plants in my first row with Emma I felt a little defeated. I learned that finding stipa is much harder than it sounds. Thankfully we got some reassurance from Stuart that some rows may only have a few or even no stipa plants in them. We continued on and by lunchtime I felt a lot more confident in my ability to pick out the stipa in each row.
Here is the elusive stipa we spent the morning searching for
A caterpillar we spotted along the way!
After lunch and a quick discussion about our insect project the team split up. Most of the crew went out to start demo at Loeffler’s Corner. I paired up with Mia and we headed out to Transplant Plot to do some quick demo. It didn’t take us to long to find those flowering plants. After finishing up Transplant Plot I set out to meet the group that had gone to Loeffler’s Corner. When I got there I couldn’t believe how much they had gotten done already! It was like a sea of neon flags, exactly what I wanted to see! I helped the group finish up then we moved on to the Railroad and Riley sites. The afternoon was filled with demo but we got so much done.
One of the flowering Echinacea we spotted at Riley’s
At the end of our very productive day we all headed home to get some much needed rest.
This morning a crew of us went out to search for Stipa, otherwise known as Porcupine Grass, in experimental plot #1. After practicing our skills together, we paired up and went searching. Each group found quite a few plants, some big and some small. Today Stuart found the biggest plant with 27 culms! Kennedy and I found many critters while searching for Stipa, including a caterpillar, a gopher, and a moth which was extremely photo shy. When I tried to take a picture of him, he decided it was better to fly into my face. Overall, it was a great morning to be out searching for Stipa!
Stipa!
Kennedy searching for some stipa…
After lunch a large group of us went out to take demos at a few sites. We started at Loeffler’s Corner and finished taking demos. I don’t know exactly how many there were, but there were plenty, believe me! My favorite part was that some had started to produce pollen and had gained their signature purple color. Then we finished demos at Railroad Crossing and Riley. Riley had my favorite flowers of the day, don’t they look so pretty?
Laura and Alex hard at work!
Once we got back, we put our equipment away and went home to prepare for a hot day tomorrow, hopefully we will stay cool!
Today was a successful (and chilly) day for Team Echinacea! We started off the week by visiting the remnants to search for Echinacea. Miyauna, Maris, Laura, Jared, and I headed out to Riley, East Riley, Railroad Crossing, North of Railroad Crossing, and North of North of Railroad Crossing.
Searching for the elusive Echinacea…
Miyauna found one!
As we searched we came across several plants that were producing POLLEN! Several more looked very close. Things are about to get really busy for the team! For now, we marked plans, and collected demo data for some. We will be back soon to start collecting phenology data in earnest!
After lunch, we heard an awesome project proposal for a massive insect investigation from Mia, and brainstormed how to finalize our team norms for the summer.
Brainstorming session…BRRR
We finished off the day by finalizing flagging in p8. While flagging, we discovered 32 Echinacea heads. To put that into perspective, there were only 5 last year!
All in all it was an excellent day for the team! I am excited to watch the colors of summer begin to unfold all across the prairie remnants. Team Echinacea is ready!
Well its official we made it through the first week of field work. This week we did a lot of flagging in the experimental plots. We are using a different flagging system in experimental plot 8 this year, we are only are flagging areas of the plot that we are searching. On Friday John, Kennedy, Wesley, and I worked on applying this new system, we made good progress but we still have a lot more to do. On Friday afternoon Allie, Miyauna, Alex, and Maris gave presentations on their independent projects. They all did great jobs and I am super excited to hear more about their projects.
On Saturday Alex and I headed over to yellow orchid hill to take a look around and walk between yellow orchid hill and Loeffler’s corner. I had never been out there and they are some beautiful hills! I didn’t get out into the remnants very much this week so it was really nice to take some time and wander around the prairie a little bit. That afternoon Alex, Amy, Drake, Lea, and I went to a brewery and had a great time hanging out eating yummy food and beer.
Today was a quiet day here at the Elk Lake house, it rained on and off all day and that set a sleepy mood around the house. Alex and I made this delicious ginger rhubarb jam that is so yummy on vanilla ice cream. Amy, Alex, and I went on a nice walk and saw a beautiful sunset.
A train passing by the hillThe darkest prairie roseThe brewery crew (pc Amy)Sunday Sunset
On Saturday morning, Amy and I each visited a handful of remnants to check on Echinacea flowering status. Amy found a few “rays spreading” plants but none shedding pollen. I found 7 heads shedding pollen (2 heads at eri, 3 heads at ri, 1 head at lc, and 1 head at ness). A couple heads were on their second day of flowering making June 18 the first day of flowering in our study sites. Notably, several big bluestem have started bolting including one at ri with a culm taller than my waist. Oofta.
Flowering Echinacea at ness with a friend
Andropogon gerardii bolting at ri… on June 19
Calylophus serrulatusat eri
A couple early flowering & poorly-pollinated Echinacea heads at Hegg Lake WMA
Over the past few days, I also spent some time searching for wood lilies (Lilium philadelphicum), also known as prairie lilies or western red lilies. When flowering, these jaw-dropping beauties are hard to miss! The vivid red-orange tepals stand out, bright flames flickering amidst a drab sea of greens and browns. I am conducting a preliminary study of lily reproduction this summer in hopes of examining how these charismatic wildflowers respond to fire. We are still early, most lily buds remain tight and green, but I have developed an eye for the buds. My plan is to visit a number of sites next week. I might be slightly obsessed with lilies…
The first weekend of the field season! With super nice weather, the Andes crew headed over to the Elk Lake house to do some laundry. We spent some nice time hanging out with the folks there while laundry dried and then headed into Alexandria for a grocery restock.
Drying laundry out on the porch at the Elk Lake house
Back at Andes again, we had a delicious dinner of more mac ‘n cheese than 3 people could eat and fried jalapeños for Juneteenth.
2 of the 3 pans of mac ‘n cheese currently residing at Andes
We closed our evening with a showing of Ratatouille, the beloved animated children’s movie covering topics such as following your dreams, proving the haters wrong, and men who can be controlled by their hair.
Team Echinacea is off to a great start. We had a wonderful first week. We got a lot done and laid the foundation to work well as a team to accomplish much more this summer. This summer we aim to learn bunches and make many contributions to science and conservation.
Look at our new shirts…
Emma wasn’t in this shot, she getting ready for the state track meet. Best wishes from Team E to Emma & AAHS track and field team at the state meet today!!!
