Members of team Echinacea went back to Minnesota to do some final field work and winterization of our field station. We had fantastic weather for field work but northerly winds brought chilly temps by the end of the week and reminded us that winter is near . Here are some updates from all we got done these past few days!
Seed Add
We added seeds to 84 experimental transects at 36 sites for our seed addition experiment, which measures the effects of prescribed fire on seedling germination and emergence in Echinacea. We made quick work and were able to get this done in just 1 day plus an extra morning!
Here is Wyatt sprinkling E. angustifolia achenes along our seed addition transects.
Prescribed Burning and Broadcasting Seed
We got two solid days of good burn weather– more than any of us predicted! Over this window we burned six units, including the production plot, a few oak litter areas, Jean’s prairie garden, and the southeast hill. After all this burning, we broadcasted native seed collected by the team this summer. We’re excited to see what happens in these units next year!
Jean’s prairie garden burned in ~5 minutes
Jared gets our 1st burn started
Wyatt broadcasts seed into this freshly burned unit
Return Achenes to Remnants
Every summer we harvest a subset of Echinacea heads from remnant sites to assess fitness. In order to ensure that we are not disrupting these populations, we later return the achenes to their maternal plants in a way that mimics natural dispersal. On this trip, we visited many small sites, where this process is essential as well as a few bigger ones.
Woody Encroachment Pilot
I tested out methods for my research project looking at the effects of Sumac encroachment on Echinacea fitness and mortality. I collected height and spatial location information on Sumac plants in order to quantify encroachment. In an encroached site like Tower, this process was no walk in the park…
Here I am staking to one of my random points
Post- Summer Sleuthing
When mistakes during summer data collection happen, it takes some investigating to figure out where we went wrong. On this trip, we revisited plants with issues from demographic data collection AND we found a P02 plant that was never harvested during the summer!
This week I worked on randomizing and counting. Thanks to the help of the student workers and volunteers, there is only about a quarter of the P01-nat batch left to randomize. I am hopeful that I will be able to complete the randomizing by the end of next Tuesday.
Today I spent my day counting achenes from the scans that I completed earlier this month. The counting process takes place on the ACE website. Each individual scan requires three different people to count it, and then the average of those three counts is taken as the most accurate one. I am completing one of the three counts for the entire batch. The ACE website is very user friendly and straight forward. The images are counted in a random order to keep the process as accurate as possible. To begin counting, I click the “count achenes” button on the dashboard (Right of Image 1). The first thing I do for every new scan is to confirm that the file name matches the envelope displayed in the scan (Image 2). After I confirm the file name and letno, I click on each achene and a blue dot is overlayed on the image (On the right of Image 2). The software keeps track of how many achenes I have counted in the image. Once I have double checked that I have accounted for every achene, I click “submit count”. The website goes back to the dashboard, and I begin the process over again. As of the end of the day today, I am 55.68% done with counting P01-nat (On the bottom of Image 1). Many thanks to the volunteers for helping me reach this point!
Image 1. ACE dashboard Image 2. A scan after all achenes have been counted.
This week I worked on scanning, randomizing and counting for P01-nat. The batch is now entirely scanned, and the images are up on the ACE website for counting! The other volunteers and I have completed 26.2% of counting as of the end of the day today. We are half done with the randomizing for the batch, and I am hoping to have that step of the process completed by the end of next week. Today I was also trained in how to prepare sheets for x-ray (end result of that process pictured below in Image 1), and I should be completing that process with P01-nat within the next couple of weeks! I have also included a picture of the end result of the rechecking process, which I detailed in my post last week (Image 2).
Image 1. Informative achenes ready for scanning.Image 2. Labeled envelopes and bags after rechecking is completed.
For my research project, the Echinacea heads in batch P01-nat have to go through the processes of cleaning, rechecking, scanning, counting, randomizing, x-raying and finally classifying before I can analyze the data. In my last blog post I detailed the methods of randomizing, and in this one I will be describing the processes of cleaning, rechecking, and scanning, the latter two steps which I have been working on in the past couple of weeks for P01-nat.
Cleaning and rechecking are very similar processes. During the cleaning process, I gently crush the Echinacea head against a Pyrex dish to separate the achenes from the head, and I use forceps to carefully remove the achenes that don’t fall out on their own. Once all of the achenes are removed from the receptacle, I put the chaff in one envelope and achenes in another and label each envelope with my initials, the date, the twist tie color, and the contents of the envelope. I put the twist tie, empty receptacle, and the two coin envelopes in the small brown paper bag. I initial and date the data sheet next to the proper letno. The rechecking process is done to check for achenes that might have been missed during the initial cleaning. For this step, only the chaff, receptacle, and twist tie are looked at again by a second person. At the end of rechecking, letno stickers are placed on the coin envelopes and the coin envelopes are then placed in numerical order in cereal boxes in preparation for scanning (Fig. 1). The same information that was recorded in the data sheet for the cleaning is recorded again under a new column for rechecking. Stay tuned, photographs of this process will be added next week!
The method for scanning the achenes is straight forward. The scanning setup is pictured below (Fig. 1 and 2). I scan each envelope of achenes one at a time by scattering the achenes evenly on a glass bottomed scanning tray, which is placed directly on the scanner. I place the coin envelope, letno label down, underneath the scanning tray and make sure that no achenes are behind it. Each scan is done at 400dpi, and saved to the server in the P01-nat folder under the same file name as the letno in the format “N-number-letter”. Once all of the achenes in each set are scanned, they are moved to the randomizing tray, which is a process I detailed in my last post. The digital files will be uploaded to the ACE website for counting once all of P01-nat has been scanned, which could be as early as next week!
Fig. 1 – Coin envelopes of achenes scanned and waiting to be scanned. Fig. 2 – Scanning setup.
There are many reasons we don’t want to lose prairie remnants to woody encroachment or conversion to agriculture. One of them is because we don’t want the Carbon in the soil to go to the atmosphere. Here’s a nice visual derived from IPCC data, 2022.
It’s autumn at Chicago Botanic Garden! Geese fly south overhead, the trees are ablaze, goldenrod has gone to seed, and there was even a dusting of snow on the ground this morning (which made for a treacherous bike ride along the Green Bay Trail).
But there are also many other signs within the Population Biology lab that will tell you fall is in the air. All of our heads from 2023 are done drying and we have just begun to inventory our harvest.
Here is Wyatt, pulling out the very first bag for 2023 inventory.
How else do we know it’s fall? We are gathering seeds and datasheets in preparation for a final return to Minnesota. We put these seeds out in experimental plots/transects or remnants “as late as possible, but not to late”. Ian is entering the last of the data from pollen and nectar collection this summer and it feels like forever ago. And when 4pm hits, the sun shines though the atrium and fills our lab with natural light. This doesn’t happen very often, but it’s a treat when it does.
Maybe it is all these tell-tale signs from the Echinacea Project that told the wild geese- “It was time to go”.
I start the process of randomizing with the coin envelopes of re-checked achenes. The first part of the process is spreading the achenes out evenly across a circle that is sectioned off into 11 parts, each identified with a letter. Using a random letter generator, I select two sections of achenes. I put the rest of the achenes back into their original coin envelope. I sort and count the achenes that were selected by the random number generator into two groups, informative and uninformative. Achenes are uninformative if they are broken, underdeveloped, predated or ray achenes because these types of achenes are either known to be sterile or the seed could have fallen out during the cleaning process. I then put a label with identification information on both a white coin envelope and a clear plastic baggie. On the white envelope, I write the number of informative and uninformative achenes as well as my initials and the date. I put the uninformative achenes in this envelope and the informative achenes in the clear plastic baggie to be x-rayed. I record the data for the number of uninformative and informative achenes in the 2022 randomizing data sheets and put the coin envelopes back in their original box and the randomized ones in a new box so that they can be prepared for x-raying. This week I switched from the bbMost 2022 batch to a smaller batch that will be more manageable to complete during the remainder of my semester long internship with the Echinacea Project. I will be carrying out the randomization using this method after the rechecking and scanning of the new batch is completed.
Here in the lab at the Garden I’ve settled, In demap and on ACE, oh boy, have I meddled. New faces I’ve seen, Not to mention achenes And all through the trails I have pedaled.
The foliage here is quite a delight, And from the Metra the city looks bright. But Minnesota’s fire Is my heart’s true desire, The prescription to better my plight.
This week I started the process of randomizing the echinacea achenes in preparation for being x-rayed. I am working with the 2022 achenes and the 2021 field data for my project to determine if health traits can be predictors of reproductive health in the following year. The purpose of randomizing the achenes is to get a sample of achenes to x-ray that is representative of the total number of achenes on that head. I start the process of randomizing with the already re-checked achene coin envelopes. The first part of the process is spreading the achenes out evenly across a circle that is sectioned off into 11 parts (on the right of the picture below). Once all of the achenes are spread out into sections, I use a random letter generator through the ACE website which gives me the two sections of achenes I am going to be working with. I move these achenes to the counting sheet (on the left of the picture below). I put the rest of the achenes back into their original coin envelope to keep them separate from the ones I am going to be sorting.
I examine each of the achenes on the counting sheet and sort them into the bottom numbered spots if they are uninformative or into the top numbered spots if they are informative. Achenes are uninformative for x-ray if they are broken, underdeveloped, predated or ray achenes. These are deemed uninformative because they are either known to be sterile or the seed could have fallen out if the achene was crushed during the cleaning process. I then label a white coin envelope with my initials, the date, and the number of uninformative and informative achenes in the batch. I put the uninformative achenes in this envelope and use a clear plastic baggie for the informative achenes that are going to be x-rayed. I put a label on both the envelope and clear plastic baggie with the assigned head number, batch number and if they are informative or not. I record the data in the 2022 randomizing data sheets and put the coin envelopes back in their original box and the randomized ones in a new box so that they can be put on x-ray sheets during the next step. So far I have randomized 24 out of approximately 500 heads in the bbMost batch for 2022!
It’s the beginning of my fifth week and so far I have learned the first three steps of the ACE process, cleaning echinacea heads, rechecking, and counting achenes. I have been practicing and refining all of these skills over the past few weeks and last week I participated in the trial rechecking assembly line with several other volunteers. As for counting, my official achene count is up to 14,485!
I am currently working on choosing my research topic for the remainder of my semester. The three ideas that I am choosing between are seed predation in E. angustifolia, climate change and flowering times of echinacea angustifolia, and physical characteristics of echinacea angustifolia that could be predictors of survival of the individual or reproductive fitness. I have chosen to use my time in the echinacea lab to investigate the relationship between the basal and cauline leaf characteristics and the survival of individual E. angustifolias. Pictured below is an example of a cultivar basal leaf rosette from an echinacea at Chicago Botanic Gardens. I am excited to explore this question further throughout the semester.
