Hello! My name is Sarah Allaben, and I’m a sophomore from Carleton College. I’m excited to be working with Team Echinacea for three weeks as part of Carleton’s winter break externship program. Along with Tris and Julie, I have been cleaning and processing many, many Echinacea angustifolia and Liatris aspera heads in support of projects examining the extent of pollen limitation of Echinacea and the effects of spatial and temporal factors on Liatris and Solidago fitness. However repetitive it may be, I find this process is strangely satisfying (though I do look forward to switching it up a little bit next week and hopefully analyzing some data).

Especially because I’m not quite sure what I’d like to pursue after graduating, this experience is hugely valuable for developing a better understanding of careers in biological research (and receiving advice from accomplished scientists and grad students!). I have yet to delve into too many biology classes, but I’ve found myself most interested so far in paleontology, especially in that it allows for extrapolation of past evolutionary and climatic changes to predict future outcomes of anthropogenic climate change. Yet, after learning more about Carleton’s restored tallgrass prairies, working in the campus greenhouse, and now spending time with Team Echinacea, I’ve developed a strong interest in ecology and plant biology as well! The plan is to gain as much experience in these different fields as I can over the next few years, and see where it takes me. In the meantime, I enjoy rock climbing, art, hiking, and dogs; I’m also a cross country and track runner and love trail running. I’m grateful and excited for the opportunity to work with Team Echinacea, and look forward to my next two weeks here!

Hello Flog,

As we wrap up these short few days before Thanksgiving in the lab I would like to share with you some of the very behind the scenes data management we do here at the Echinacea Project. For the last few weeks, we have been working on revamping our workflow for how we add GPS points into our 24-year dataset. Ultimately, this was our result:

How we take the data on the GPS (the bubble on the left) and get it into all the different formats we need

Well maybe this isn’t exactly “light” reading, but it does offer an insight to just how many steps there are to managing this data.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Michael

Hello! I am Emily Staufer, one of the Lake Forest College students taking part in the ‘mini-internships’ with CBG! I’m working with Kristen Manion on pinning foraging bees from the Hegg NE site.

I really enjoy working on this project; I spent the past summer in a research lab point-mounting ants, and so working with critters a little larger and involving much less glue is a much-welcomed change of pace. I’ve also always had an interest in conservation ecology, so this project is a perfect fit, and Kristen is helping me figure out how to ask questions of my own about my little section I’m working on in order to have a great presentation for the end of the semester.

When asked about my specific role, I like to think of my corner of the table in the CBG lab as my bee beauty (bee-uty!) salon – it’s my role to make the specimen look as good as possible, and this all boils down to fluffy bees.

At my salon, the wash always comes first, since the bees are all in their ethanol tubes from each collection location. A quick towel dry follows to begin the fluffing process. Under the dissecting scope, they undergo a slightly invasive process when the pin is put in place through the center of their abdomen, but it is followed quickly by a relaxing massage with a pair of forceps as I position their legs and wings. What comes next is the real treat – a nice, warm blowdry using my very professional Pink Hairdryer. No bee is left defluffed, as this is key to the process! After their treatment, each happy customer is added to the larger board next to their foraging friends from the same site. Come visit my salon in the CBG lab, 100% satisfaction rating on Yelp (or it would have one, if bees had access to iPhones).

Some of the bees Emily has been working with these past few weeks.

Stuart, Michael and I were back in Minnesota this week Monday-Thursday to finish up a few fieldwork tasks. We staked to 268 points across our sites to complete demo rechecks. Most of our Echinacea have fully senesced, but there were a few out there with some greenish leaves. There are not a lot of species flowering, except your occasional Solidago still holding on.

We also started work herbiciding Ash trees in p8. We didn’t apply herbicide to any trees close to Echinacea, because we wanted to test out our methods. It will be interesting to see how well the herbicide works. Finally, no chances for a burn these last few days, with wind and humidity levels not right. There might be a chance for a burn this fall, but more likely spring 2019.

Solidago fluff at Hegg.

Tomorrow I will be coming back to CBG to work for a few days over break and I’m very excited! I just wanted to take the time and explain some of the things that I’ve done since the school year started. I finished entering two data sets of data; the data from pollen in the bank and the maternal repaints (technically I entered one and a half because Zeke filled out the pollen in the bank data with me). I’ve also been showing our new volunteer, Nate Scheerer, around the lab sense he’ll be helping me count the pollen on the styles Zeke, Mia, and I collected this summer out in Minnesota. But what I’ve completed that I was most proud of was making the fuschin dye that we’ll be using to stain the styles. Even though I was nervous when making the gel, the product turned out great! One thing that I recommend before making the gel is having all the materials that you’ll need nearby so you can keep a close eye on the gel (and so the people in the stockroom don’t get annoyed with seeing you every five minutes). I’m looking forward to a productive few days at CBG!

Just a small amount of the gel that I made in the lab.