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This morning I was devastated to find that our larva had died overnight–as we said in the previous post, we were hoping to raise them, and I had also become a little attached. My grief didn’t last very long, though, because I found two larva wreaking havoc in my second head of the day! Emma and I quickly repopulated our petri dish with wriggly pink bugs.
When a seed head has a larva, we can expect a good number of the achenes to have holes burrowed in their sides. Today, we finally caught a larva in the act! This little guy was found with the front half of its body inside an achene. It’s good to have conclusive evidence for what precisely is going on around these seeds…
Other exciting updates: we’ve officially passed the half-way point on cleaning our 110 seed heads. At closing, we’re working on #61. Woo for progress!
Ta ta for now,
Mikaela
 The perpetrator (image quality fuzzy to better convey shadiness)
Roxy, a loyal companion to Team Echinacea during our summers in Minnesota, died today. She led a long and full life: running, digging holes & trenches, enjoying the companionship of people, eating smelly things, licking skunky gravel, basking in the sun, and chasing many critters, including chipmunks, 13-lined ground squirrels, rabbits, gray squirrels, fox squirrels, raccoons, ducklings, mice, red squirrels, and pocket gophers. She will be greatly missed.
Stuart recommends the below books as a good place to start thinking about time management. If you aim to manage time to better reflect your values, these books can help you develop strategies. The locations refer to NU libraries.
Mindset : the new psychology of success / Carol S. Dweck.
Dweck, Carol S., 1946-
New York : Random House, ©2006, 1st ed..
Checked out from Main Library Stacks (153.8 D989m )
Thinking, fast and slow / Daniel Kahneman.
Kahneman, Daniel, 1934-
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, 1st ed..
Available at Qatar Library Stacks (BF441 .K238 2011 ) and other locations
Getting things done : the art of stress-free productivity / David Allen.
Allen, David, 1945 December 28-
New York : Viking, 2001
Available at Main Library Stacks (646.7 A425g ) and other locations
Succeed : how we can reach our goals / Heidi Grant Halvorson ; foreword by Carol S. Dweck.
Halvorson, Heidi Grant-, 1973-
New York : Hudson Street Press, ©2010
Available at Main Library Stacks (153.8 G762s )
Power of habit : why we do what we do in life and business / Charles Duhigg.
Duhigg, Charles, author.
New York : Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014, Random House Trade Paperback edition..
Checked out from Main Library Lending Resource Sharing Requests (BF335 .D78 2014 )
Willpower : the rediscovery of humans’ greatest strength / Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney.
Baumeister, Roy F.
New York : Penguin Press, 2011
Checked out from Main Library Stacks (153.8 B347w )
 Echinacea purpurea at Yellow Orchid Hill Non-native and invasive species are present in many of our study sites and may compete with native species for resources, such as light, space, or pollinators. Some invasive species, such as brome (Bromus inermis) and sweet clover (Melitotus officinalis), are already so widespread and abundant that we don’t keep track of where they are. However, this summer we noticed new appearances of several other non-native species, Echinacea purpurea and Rudbeckia hirta*, that could become more dominant in years to come. We documented their presence by taking photos and shooting GPS points. Most of the places where we saw these species were nearby or part of a restoration where the non-native species was introduced as part of the seed mix. Going forward, we will return to the locations where these species were found in 2016 and monitor the expansion of their populations.
Year: 2016
Location: RRX (Rudbeckia hirta), north of WAA (Rudbeckia hirta), RLR (Rudbeckia hirta and Echinacea purpurea), YOHW (Echinacea purpurea), and the corner of Tower Rd and 27 (Rudbeckia hirta)
Data collected: The photos we took are stored in Dropbox (summer2016pics/invasives)
GPS points shot: We shot GPS points at: RRX (1 pt), RLR (approximately 10 pts), YOH (1 pt). The restoration near WAA had too many plants to shoot individually, so we just took pictures. We couldn’t find the Rudbeckia at the corner of Tower Rd because the area where it had been was disturbed by electrical work. These points are stored in the job ‘ECHPURP_RUDBHIRT_20160914_SULU.tsj’.
*You might be thinking, “Isn’t Rudbeckia native?” and the answer is yes, in other parts of Minnesota. However it is not present in any of the high-quality remnant prairies in our study area and so we consider it to be non-native to our sites.
Amy and Scott started our Sunday off by continuing to monitor Lea’s transect at Staffanson. Thankfully, the mosquitoes failed to carry them away. Donnelly, a town near Morris, was having a threshing bee and parade this weekend, and I was invited by the Kensington Lions Club to become a viking for afternoon. I quickly accepted, since, given my non-Scandinavian heritage I might not have this opportunity many times. After learning much about the history of the local farms and farmers during the drive, I embarked upon the knarr for our passage through the streets of Donnelly. For those of you who may not be vikings or have not used a knarr for seafaring purposes, it is a cargo vessel used by the Norse for cross-Atlantic travel. I believe the specific knarr I was on may have been used to carry the runestone to its resting place in the true home of the runestone, Kensington. Anyway, our voyage safely completed and the candy handed out, I returned to K-town, my viking duties over. Scott, Amy and I then went swimming in Elk Lake where we met Abby and all her new college buddies. We stocked up on food and are now preparing for some of Scott’s signature Spanish omelets. Stay tuned for more musty news about death by mosquitoes at Staffanson tomorrow.
A fierce, clearly Norse, Viking warrior. Update: Can you count the number of ice creams in the fridge? We think there aren’t enough. Leave your guesses, comments, suggestions or concerns below.
With Lea leaving this morning, the remaining crew members Amy, James, Will and I, took the day off. There was no work to do, and thus no work was done. Kensington was cool and cloudy today, but it should be back to 80 degrees this week, when we plan to finish demo at Staffanson, continue harvesting, recheck p7, and check Lea’s Liatris and goldenrod transects.
 Map I made of recheck status for all positions searched in p7 this year. Black dots represent plants found, red dots represent positions where plants were not found that will be rechecked, gold represents positions where plants haven’t been seen in three years, and blue represents plants that should be remeasured. We’ll hopefully recheck p7 this upcoming week.
Today was probably the coldest day of fieldwork we have had all summer, a cold front passed through on Wednesday and left us with a cloudy 60 degree day. For those team members who are more accustomed to hotter summers today was a little bit of a shock.
We went out to do total demography at Staffanson Praire Preserve, our goal while doing total demo is to census all of the plants that have flowered sometime in the last 20 years. It’s a big project, at Staffanson alone there are just over one thousand locations to visit. While not all of these locations still have a plant it is awesome to see a tag around a plant that was put there in 1996 or 1997.
Even the flowers are cold! We made a huge dent in the number of locations at Staffanson, of the 1054 locations we visited 435, nearly half done!
Scott stakes locations while Amy does demography on the plants at each location
Good afternoon floggers! As far as progress goes, we are moving along steadily on cleaning and counting. I have randomized about 180 samples of achenes and I have finished rechecking the three trays of randomized achenes. We are on the 9th bag of Echinacea heads that need to be cleaned. In other news from the lab, the REU students have completed their research and are presenting their scientific posters today. We have had lots of interesting information and studies to read about over the past few days! Today will be my last day volunteering in the lab. I am off to University of Michigan to complete my undergraduate degree in Environmental Sciences. The opportunity to volunteer in the lab this summer has been truly unbelievable. I have learned so much, not only from staff members, but also from the incredible volunteers who kept me company. I am so grateful to have been given this job and I would like to thank everyone who made this summer internship unforgettable. This is Ivy Klee signing off! Goodbye and good luck with the rest of project Echinacea!
Today was the last day for the aphids on the team. As Scott did a final assessment of all of the aphid addition and exclusion plants, he noticed many of our aphid team members were coming to the end of their season. Alas, Team Echinacea 2016 says good by to our little aphid friends, wrapping up an exciting season of aphid addition and exclusion!
In addition to working with the aphids, Laura and I finished up phenology on the remnants while James GPS’d the edges of a few more sites. I also took a look at all the plants I’m monitoring for flowering phenology at Staffanson. Most of the Liatris aspera on the east unit have started flowering, but Solidago speciosa is yet to begin. I also saw a flowering Prenanthes.
 Flowering Liatris aspera Flowering Prenanthes After lunch, we worked out at p1, searching for “can’t finds” and staples. The thunder started about 3:15 and we wrapped up early. Back at town hall, James made an amazing dinner of fresh tomato and vegetable sauce with polenta AND pasta. We ate a particularly ripe watermelon from our CSA, and I made a blueberry cobbler with all of the remaining blueberries left behind at town hall.
Blueberry cobbler, YUM
We are down in numbers this week. Leah, Alyson, Alex, and Jennifer headed back to Ohio last week, and Amy and Will are in Florida for the ESA meeting this week.
Even with the low numbers we’ve been very productive these past two days. On Monday, we did phenology on the few plants that are still flowering. Then people split off and worked on individual projects and aphid treatments. Ruth Shaw and Margaret Kuchenreuther, a biology professor from Univ. MN Morris, came in for lunch.After lunch we headed out to Loeffler’s Corner to do some (former) seedling refinds.
This morning, we all split up to accomplish a lot. Scott and I finished up the aphid treatments from yesterday, Laura rechecked her project plant positions, Lea went out to Staffanson to put more plants into her project form, and James GPSed some more edges. Laura and Scott also found time to measure P6. At lunch, we had a delicious chocolate cake from Gretel and Hattie. YUM! After lunch we did full demo at Tower and South of Golf Course. We headed straight to Elk Lake after work to cool down and have fun!
Unfortunately, today was my last day with Team Echinacea. Thanks for a summer full of fun, learning, and prairies!
 Teamwork makes the dream work.  Scott searches for a tag during demo.  Yay! We’ve found a tag! Saying goodbye to Roxy was the hardest. 🙁
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