Hello Echination! It’s me again, Riley. I’m finally returning to regular summer flogs, and I am beyond excited to be doing so. As regular flog subscribers may know, I spent the winter with Team Echinacea at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and I have been looking forward to adventures in west-central Minnesota for a while now. I like to think my return to the prairie was as epic as Kurt Angle’s TNA debut.
Nonetheless, we had a productive team day today. This morning, Anna M, Mia, and I went out to hybrid exPt7 and exPt9 and flagged the plots for future measuring. It went very smoothly relative to previous years! Additionally, we found a flowering plant in experimental plot 7! We expect it is either an Echinacea pallida plant or a hybrid. I think it may be in the same plant that flowered in 2018 in exPt7. Other team members weeded in exPt1 this morning, and Erin worked on preparing Darwin to stake and shoot plants in the remnants. Finally, Amy W and Emma went to remnants to take demography records on plants that have initiated flowering.
We had a fun lunch and headed over to West Central Area High School for an afternoon of meetings. First, we talked about team norms and expectations over Zoom. We started by trying to all Zoom from the same room, but that was a disaster. We decided to split into separate rooms, and the meeting went well thereafter. Finally, we talked as a group (this time, in-person) about COVID-19 expectations and preparedness. Once again, our meeting went well, and we have clearer ground rules to mitigate COVID transmission opportunities.
Well, flog readers, thanks for having me! I’ll talk to ya soon!!! Peace out Echination.
First rays up of the year in the study area!! (except we think it’s pallida. rat.)
Today sure was a hot one out there today, well in comparison to how early in the season it is. The theme of the day was cleaning up. We started by cleaning up the flagging system in P1, this meant replacing most of the old flags from last year with clean crisp new ones. This is an extremely important task because it sets the ground work to collect data in P1 for the rest of the season.
A precision line of flags made by the team (photo creds to Emma)
Erin and Emma worked on rechecking some confusing data
points from last summer. By fixing these confusing points Emma and Erin were
able to pick up the data set.
A number of team members working on picking up G3 and started
on picking up Hjelm house.
Darwin practicing his road safety with his hi-vis hat (Photo creds to Erin)
Erin headed out to Near Town Hall to check on how the plants
are doing out there, she found what is thought to be the last known living
plant in the remnant. She reports that it is fairly large and is only a basal
plant this year and last flowered in 2018.
The Near Town Hall plant (photo creds to Erin)
We will keep cleaning so that we can have the most accurate and efficient season possible!
After lunch on June 15th, Amy and I headed out to visit the remnants around Golf Course and Landfill. We flagged flowering plants to get a sense of how many will flower later in the season.
The number of flagged Echinacea averaged around five flowering Echinacea per remnant. We did not visit Landfill, which has a much higher number of flowering plants.
A view of the flags fluttering in the wind.
One of the sites we visited had been recently mowed at the edge of the road, cutting off leaves and possibly flowering heads.
One of the plants that got mowed – you can see where the leaves got cut.
After a windy and hot afternoon of flagging we headed back to Hjelm House to pack up and head home. More flagging to come!
On Monday we were tasked with estimating the number of flowering plants in P2, one of the experimental plots. We set off to P2 and decided to count 1/3 of the plot. In P2 there are 80 rows of Echinacea plants and we decided to count every third row to get an estimate. Overall we did not find many flowering plants, only 70 flowering plants with a total of 89 heads. None of the plants were very far along in flowering and we will likely have some time before we have to start doing phenology.
The ever spectacular P2 view
Some of the non Echinacea native prairie plants like lead plant, little bluestem, veiny pea, prairie rose, and hoary puccoon. We also saw some invasive brome and alfalfa.
Hoary puccoonA bird’s nest found along the south end of the plot
Just checking in after the first few days of fieldwork this summer! I’m getting used to fieldwork that’s individual-plant oriented rather than surveying an entire community, since the EP focuses on long-term monitoring of individual Echinacea plants.
That said, I did like getting a prairie community refresher through the diverse range of plants we saw at Staffanson Prairie, a Nature Conservancy preserve we explored yesterday. Mia, Lea, and I had a good time looking at some plant field guides after work to remember what they all were. (Featured species: bracted spiderwort Tradescantia bracteata, below!)
Besides Staffanson, it was interesting getting a sense of the range of prairie fragments––along roadsides, on hillsides, next to a landfill, etc., anywhere that isn’t in use for agriculture––that we’ll be monitoring this summer. Right now there’s lots phenology monitoring, which starts with flagging Echinacea plants that are already starting to flower. Today Erin started showing me how to use the GPS that we’ll use for surveying the flowering plants. Lots to come FLOG!
Long-bracted spiderwort, Tradescantia bracteata Fun fact: this plant is called spiderwort because the juice in its stem is sticky and apparently looks like a spider’s thread! The landfill prairie site––landfill in background
Today was an amazing first day at The Echinacea Project. While it may have gone slightly unexpected due to COVID-19, we managed to have a product and fun-filled day. I’m so excited to have been introduced to the wonderful plant, Echinacea angustifolia!
We began our day by meeting at the Hjelm House for introductions and COVID-19 guidelines. As a junior in highschool, networking is extremely important. One perk of working with Team Echinacea is that I get to meet an array of people from different backgrounds, experiences, and have access to an endless supply of knowledge about ecology and conservation. This became apparent when we visited Staffanson, where new and recurring team members familiarized themselves with native and non-native species. This experience opened my eyes to the extensive biodiversity of prairie, as well as how burning affects the versatility and populations of flowers, grasses, legumes, and any other plants you might find.
John got a really awesome picture of me with the “monster plant”, which is known to provide several Echinacea heads. Featuring me, for size reference!
After our trek through Staffanson, we visited “South of Golf Course”, a heavily disturbed prairie remnant. The lack of biodiversity and clear topographical difference reminded us of how human interaction can impact environment, but also provides us a place to study ecological restoration in heavily-impacted areas.
After lunch, I had a chance to visit some remnants with team member Lea, where we practiced flagging, observing, and estimating Echinacea plants. Thanks to that, I now know what to look for when trying to observe several species of plants, which will be crucial for future experiments.
I then spent the afternoon visiting a controlled burn near the Hjelm house. During the burn, several flags that marked former Echinacea (planted by the team for observation) had suffered, and were less-than-impressive. Team member Emma and I worked hard to replace and mark flags, which will be helpful in future experiments this summer.
An example of a flag Emma and I marked this afternoonAn image of our hard work, as well as the remains of some poor, poor flags. At least the Echinacea benefit from that!
By the end of our flag restoration extravaganza, it was time to pack up and head home. Now, we get to rest and do it all tomorrow! I’m excited to see where our projects take us this summer, which will all be documented in our flog!
At the Echinacea Project Evanston Outpost Riley and I have been chugging along with our work for the past two and a half months. We’ve had countless remote meetings, surrendered precious square feet of floorspace to binders of datasheets, migrated the infallible sticky-note kanban to our walls (me) and online (Riley,) and begun coordinating with our summer team to prepare for the field season. Expect to see some new faces on the flog in the coming week!
We started on the northwest corner of P1 and split into two groups to work around the plot. The burn was long and slow!
As we approach the field season, we’ve gotten the chance to stretch our legs outside our apartment. In late May a team dashed up to the field site to capitalize on a narrow window of perfect burn conditions. Changeable winds made our burn of the 99-south plot a little more exciting than we had hoped, but we took the burn low and slow and very safely across experimental plot 1.
Drake headed up to our field site several weeks ago, where he’s been germinating seeds for a parasite competition experiment he’ll conduct this summer. When we return to the field in a couple weeks we’re looking forward to seeing the hoop houses he’ll have set up to house his plants!
Drake is planning to germinate some 40 plant species this summer, but he forgot our favorite species in Illinois– Echinacea angustifolia! Riley and I have gotten special permission to return to the Chicago Botanic Garden to start a pre-germination treatment of Echinacea achenes in the lab. I’ll bring Drake the achenes when I drive out to the field site in the next couple weeks– what are the odds that radicles start emerging in my car?
It’s been exciting to get back to the garden, though we may look a little different from the last time we were here!
The garden will start a limited reopening next week, when visitors will be allowed to walk the perimeter of the grounds. We took a peek outside when we were preparing the pre-germinants, and it looks like the grounds crew have been doing a beautiful job maintaining the garden. We’re excited to see more before we head back to Minnesota!
Sadly, Riley and I have also made use of our visits to the garden to clean out our desks. Access to the plant science building is limited and we will not be working full-time there again, as we are headed off to graduate school following the field season. This will be the first time Riley and I have lived apart since meeting last June! However, we’ll only be a few states apart– Riley is headed to the University of Georgia in Athens, GA and I’ll be at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.
Once a team member, always a team member
As the field season gears up, we will return to our daily summer flogging schedule. We’re all very excited to get out to the field and to meet the new team members!
In conjunction with the CBG’s current policy, the Echinacea Project’s base of operations has moved out of the Plant Science building and into our living room! The lab is closed to volunteers and staff through the month of March and potentially longer as the situation develops. Despite this hiccup, we are continuing with our work and we’re looking forward to the productivity the next few weeks will offer!
All three species are represented in this tray
Over the last few months we’ve been germinating E. angustifolia, pallida and purpurea for our investigation into Echinacea ploidy. Elif, Riley and myself have been caring for the seedlings and will be working with people at the CBG to determine how we can maintain an appropriate watering schedule and safe social distancing practices.
Fingers crossed the little guys can hang in there til we get a schedule worked out!
Though our ACE head processing protocol is on hold for the foreseeable future, our excellent volunteer force has made great progress in 2020. We’re about 3/4s through cleaning the 2018 heads. Our counters are overflowing with cereal boxes of achene envelopes and with help from the volunteers, Riley cleared up some space by moving our 2015 achenes into the Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank (fancy title for “that big freezer on the other side of the building.”) We’ll be moving 2016 in there too when we return!
There’s plenty of work for us to do outside of the lab, so fear not our idle hands! Riley’s looking ahead to the 2020 field season by preparing for measuring in our common gardens. He’s working on a snappy measuring field checks function to hopefully streamline a process which took us a lot of time in Fall 2019.
Currently I’m working on uniting our 2019 demo and surv records in demap. First I tackled our largest 2019 flowering site (Aanenson,) and now I’m working through sling sites to hopefully have maternal plant data ready for our collaborative sling project.
The superteam of Team Echinacea members and alums working on sling in 2019/20 is hopeful about making some great progress in the coming weeks. Perhaps this cross-country collaboration was the original social distancing initiative? Video calls are the hip new quarantine hangout these days, so we were ahead of the curve on that front!
comfy!
classy!
Since we’re now the masters of the office dress code, we’ve been stretching our fashion wings. I’ve busted out my favorite slippers and jeans, and Riley’s switching up his hat game from baseball to brimmed. Check back in with us in a few weeks– we’re working on getting our Spring 2020 collection ready for debut!
This weekend I traveled to the University of Georgia for a graduate student recruitment event (“Go Dawgs,” as they say,) and stumbled upon Echinacea Project alum Laura Leventhal! We rode on a shuttle from the ATL airport to campus in silence for 2 hours and then, having realized our connection, terrified the other passengers in the last 5 minutes of the journey by jabbering about Team Echinacea, the Hjelm House, goats, phenology and more.
We thought we’d seen the last of each other when we split up at TSA, and then coincidentally reunited while contemplating whether or not to buy airport mac and cheese (verdict: not.)
Laura was on the team in 2016 and worked at the Chicago Botanic Garden through the CLM program. Currently she works at UC Davis as a lab manager and is currently interviewing for PhD programs in biology. We had a great time getting to know more about each other in person than we could from reading old flog posts. I found out that Laura heard my undergraduate PI Dr. Joshua Puzey speak at a conference, and that my friend is currently applying to work with a PI at UC Davis whom Laura knows! The world of ecology is, occasionally, delightfully small.
Best wishes to Laura as she continues interviewing and I’m crossing my fingers for more Team Echinacea reunions in our travels!
This past week, I continued work on multiple projects. I continued to recheck and label cleaned Echinacea heads, growing the supply of achenes that are ready to be scanned, so that we can keep the samples moving through the steps. I also spent considerable time on randomizing. I resorted the informative and uninformative achenes from some of the 2013 and 2014 collection so that they are organized in the same way as more recent samples and so protocol is consistent across the board. After resorting was complete, I did the standard randomization protocol on achenes from 2018.
In addition to working with the Echinacea collection, I continued to organized the native bee collection. One task in particular has been going through the specimens, checking the SPID numbers, and checking them off on a data sheet to confirm which specimens still exist in the collection and which ones have been removed or discarded. I have labeled each smaller box within the cases with Roman numerals and have recorded on the data sheet in which box each specimen can be found. I will continue this project in the last few days of my internship and hopefully complete it so that there is a definite record of the specimens in the native bee collection.
