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!!!
For many months I have been eagerly awaiting summer in the prairie. After a long winter and a busy spring, I found visiting local prairies during the past couple weeks incredibly restorative. Each step is accompanied by a familiar crunch as new “green friends” come into view. Their distinctive color palettes fuse into a vivid mosaic. As the summer progresses, I know incredible hues of green, yellow, white, purple, and orange will wax and wane producing a shifting mosaic of colors that simply enthralls the senses. I know what is coming, yet I can hardly contain my excitement.
Welcome Team Echinacea 2021! Here’s to a safe, productive, and illuminating summer of science filled with kaleidoscopic prairie sunsets and a menagerie of new friends, green and otherwise.
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Chicago Botanic Garden. I joined the Echinacea Project in 2014 as a Research Intern. Before returning to Team Echinacea this winter, I finished up my PhD at UW-Madison in 2020.
Research Interests
I am a plant ecologist and conservation biologist. My research investigates how fire influences the plant reproduction and population dynamics in fragmented prairies.
Statement
In my spare time, I enjoy spending time outdoors: birding; botanizing; exploring the natural world by foot, bike, and canoe; and working on restoration projects. My fascination with ducks borders on obsession.
Hi again, it’s Emma––it’s been three weeks already and I’ve finished the majority of data analysis for my independent project! I presented about it at our lab meeting this morning and it was good to show what I’ve learned to the team and to get some helpful feedback.
To summarize my experiment’s goal, I was investigating whether there are differences in microhabitat between areas with surviving Echinacea seedlings and areas where Echinacea seedlings established but have died. This involved collecting data on site characteristics like litter depth, vegetation cover, slope, aspect, distance to roads and fields, plant community composition, and floral neighborhood at circles where seedlings monitored in the Sling project sprouted between 2007-2013. After analyzing my data, I can report that I found no differences in microhabitat between living and dead seedlings, and that I did not find differences in survival by prairie remnant, either. This suggests that the microhabitat variables I collected data on are likely not the most important factors driving seedling survival and mortality in this long-lived prairie perennial plant. Instead I propose that other factors, like climate, soil moisture & nutrients, pesticide drift, light limitation, herbivory, and genetics, may have greater impact on whether seedlings establish or die. Luckily the Sling project is ongoing and members of Team Echinacea are working to find out what drives seedling fitness in fragmented Echinacea populations!
I learned a LOT about doing data analysis in R during this project. I’m super grateful to Mia and Stuart for all the help they gave me when I had questions about R during the internship! The highlights probably are learning about, and doing, some multivariate analysis and using the R package vegan. It was so cool getting to create my own NMDS and species accumulation graphs after seeing them in many ecology papers I’ve read. From here I plan to do a few final analyses and edits with the intention of presenting my project findings at an ecology conference next summer.
That’s all from me for now! Stay tuned for a groovy poster…
It’s Emma Greenlee back for part 2 of my independent project, data analysis! My project draws from the Sling project, in which Team Echinacea annually tracks the survival of Echinacea seedlings that originated between 2006-2013 for an extensive record of survival and mortality in these seedlings. During my internship with the Echinacea Project this past summer I collected data in the hopes of finding out whether Sling seedling survival varies with microhabitat characteristics. Now that Carleton is on our 6-week-long winter break, I’m analyzing that microhabitat data with the goal of putting together a poster to present at an ecology conference next summer.
After a week of working on this, starting from a fairly low level of R knowledge, I have learned a lot and feel like I’m still very early in the process. I started the week doing some R tutorials and lessons and checked in with Mia daily on Zoom to talk about any questions I had. She set up a nice outline to help me get started and has been really helpful, so shout out to Mia! I have spent most of my time cleaning my data, which is separated into two data sets, one containing microhabitat data on litter depth, vegetation cover, slope, aspect, distance to roads and fields, and plant community composition in each sling circle, and the other containing records of all flowering species and number of inflorescences at each sling circle. Once it’s formatted how I want I will start some exploratory data analysis, hopefully at the start of next week.
I also got to go to the Echinacea Project’s zoom lab meeting this morning, where the group discussed an outline for the introduction to the sling paper Lea is working on. It was nice to see everyone, and to hear about how the sling research will translate to papers and the kinds of decisions that are involved in thinking about how to set up a research paper. This morning there was also a seminar put on by the CBG where speakers representing Plants of Concern, restoration research at the garden, the Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie seedbank, and Budburst presented a little about their projects and how other collaborators can get involved. A common theme among the presenters was an emphasis on citizen science and even “community science,” a term I hadn’t heard before but thought was awesome.
Just looking at the vegan package for R made me feel like a real ecologist this week, looking forward to continuing to build on what I know next week.
Yesterday was my last day with Team Echinacea. I’m sad to say goodbye so soon, but my Junior year of high school is calling me. I had an amazing summer with the team, and I learned so much about plants and the prairie in a unique experience I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else.
It wasn’t just my last day yesterday, but also Lea, John, and Emma’s. We wrapped up our time together with one last goat-herding excursion, some packing, and a little bit of demo before our early lunch.
At lunch, we had some delicious vegan chocolate cake (Thank you Jean for all the cakes you’ve made us this summer!) and sat in our 2020 grass-circle for the last time. John and Lea’s puppy pals came to visit too! I’m going to miss our little spot under the oak trees, but I won’t miss the constant fear of acorn-pelting…
Who’s a good boy? Clyde’s a good boy!Huxley and Velmie came to visit too!
In the afternoon, Emma, Mia and I went out to Hegg Lake/P2 to shoot demo on some recruitment sites. I got some quality time with Darwin in the car while we drove, and Emma was able to shoot one final site with him. I think it was a pretty sentimental experience for the both of us.
MYSTERY DOGS!! These guys were hanging out on the side of the road as we drove by… we thought they were coyotes, but we were pleasantly surprised!“don’t speak to me or my son ever again” Just kidding! Darwin and I are very social
At the end of the day, we cleaned up Hjelm as much as we could, returned our equipment, and said the final good-byes for the summer. I’m going to miss Team Echinacea as Fall and Winter come, but I’m hoping to visit again next summer. Thank you to all the people who helped me grow as a scientist and student. I wouldn’t exchange this summer for anything, and I’m grateful we were given the chance to come together in 2020.
Today the loud lumbering noises came back, it has been a while since they last visited but the day lengths seem similar to last time. The noises got louder when they found me, I guess that means that they were excited to see me again. I wonder if they know that I look forward to their visit every year.
This has been a big year for me I worked really hard and I grew two whole leaves! The longest one is all of seven whole centimeters! My parent plant would be so proud of me! Speaking of the good old ‘rent, I haven’t heard from them in a while. I miss them but I am excited to strike out on my own, I hope that I can flower some day and make them proud.
Anyway, today was a good day since the loud lumbering noises came for their visit and I look forward for when they come and visit again. But for now, I have to go back to getting ready for the cold. I am keeping busy making sure all of my sugars are packed away and ready for midnight snacking.
Sincerely,
M
The Tart Plum Plum Tart is ready for Mary Berry’s approval
Today Emma and I did some sling in the morning when we visited this seeding M. Lea did her last field work of the year this morning! During lunch Drake brought his Tart Plum Plum Tart, to share! It was very good, and we all appreciated the time that picking all of the plums took. In the afternoon Emma and I set off to do some of the little demo left. I got some practice at operating Darwin. Operating Darwin is a bit trickery than I was expecting but with a good teacher like Emma I picked it up fairly quickly.
Me attempting to get the GPS in the exact right spot….
The team is starting to wrap up our season as we say goodbye to more members. We’re sad to see them go, but our remaining group has continued to power through- business as usual!
Emma, Mia and I started the day off with demo in some sites previously untouched by the 2020 team. First, we went to Hegg Lake, where I harvested some Echinacea pallida as well as Echinacea angustifolia, the last field-work step of our hybrid experiment (Stay tuned for an update on that in the coming weeks!). Emma and Mia practiced demo in some smaller sites so that Mia is trained in on Darwin, or “Chucky D”, when Emma and I leave.
Mia and “Chucky D”, or Darwin, as we affectionately call our GPS!
Photo opportunities call for action! I think this one was pretty successful. Thanks Emma for the help with this one!
In the afternoon, Emma headed off to do some more work on sling, while Mia and I harvested heads. Emma not only managed to finish the sites she planned, but also went on to tackle Staffanson! Big sites like that are hard to manage, especially on your own. Go Emma!
Mia and I continued to pick away at P1 harvesting. We got a good portion done, and plan on finishing it in the coming week. I also took some pictures of plants in different stages to improve our protocol, which will help newcomers and oldtimers in the following years.
It’s important to hydrate during field work! (Not sponsored… but Hydro Flask- if you’re looking for someone…)
Overall, our small team turned out to be pretty successful! We were productive, pushed through, and made it out alive. Here’s another success story for the books- or, maybe just the flog.
Today Amy D. came up from the cites to help kick off sling refinds!
I had never done sling before, but I thought it was pretty cool. It’s kind of like if measuring and demo had a kid, because you have to measure all of the seedlings but also still find nearest neighbor. We were able to finish three sites today, East elk lake road, KJ’s, and south of golf course!
Amy D. and I on the hunt for seedlings!
This afternoon we worked on some p1 harvest as a team and Emma went off to work on her independent project.
It was a hot one out here today but we all made it out alive and are ready to get some more stuff done tomorrow!
Sadly today was my last day. We started off the day by moving the goats, which was really fun. Then we keeping going on rechecks in P1, and ending the day with cutting big blue stem.
I had a wonderful summer and I wouldn’t change it at all! I have always said my dream job is where I could wear rain boats and fun hats and in thing job I could. I am so thankful for all the people I met and all the experiences I got to have.
I don’t know what I will miss more, the people or my cone?
