22% done, another effort made this morning with 4 pairs!
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Yesterday, the team began measuring our biggest common garden experiment, P1! This plot has 10,992 positions that were planted with Echinacea. Yesterday, 3 teams of pairs went out for about 3.5 hours in the morning and knocked out 1,140 positions and 14 segments for over 10% of P1! I’m excited we made so much progress the first day! Below is map that visualizes progress. Stay tuned for today’s update.  Ritualistic randomizer A machine of the organizer Shake up the pairing Instead of despairing Stale routine? Revitalize her!    In this episode of a day we started off testing out Jared’s protocols for micro habitats. We gathered data like soil compaction, light availability and litter depth from random test points. We had lots of success and even more discoveries on how to make things run smoother. Tomorrow we will put the newly revised protocol to the test in the first official episode of micro habitats! I was lucky to be partnered with Blaire for this flagging quest and we were an unstoppable duo. Each meter transect is marked with a nail, and between the the two of us, we had a high success rate for nail unearthing. Oftentimes they were parallel with the ground or hidden by nail-like imposters (rocks) that we suspect Stuart may have planted to test our nail-finding abilities. Blaire dubbed us as “private eyes” and I said we were “human metal detectors”. If you’d like to hire us for your investigation needs, you can contact us through the flog.  Pollen Scraped off of bees But who did it come from? Saving flowers to check which one Matches! — Brimming Vials full of Orange, purples, yellows Bottles glowing in a sunbeam Dreamy    This morning in P6, a murder occurred. The victim? A (likely) hybrid between Echinacea pallida and angustifolia. It flowered for the first time ever and Lindsey quickly decapitated it after taking data.   Top: Lindsey and her latest victim. Bottom: Echinacea angustillida (unofficially named). The pollen color is right in between that of a pallida and angustifolia plant. Magical hobbit houses to old giants. Yesterday I got to join the REU interns for their field trip to The Morton Arboretum where I was able to learn and appreciate the different variety of trees in their exhibitions. It was interesting to see so many kinds of trees and also learn more about the endangered species and the reasons why they are currently endangered. Here is a picture of the spruce plot off in the distance. It is so majestic! Unfortunately, we were not able to get off the tram and wander into the spruce tree forest. After the tram tour of the arboretum, we were able to get a tour of their lab space and learn more about the different ongoing projects. One of the REU interns there was studying traits of different urban trees in hopes of being able to determine what type of trees would thrive better in urban environments where there is a limit to resources, such as water and soil volume. In their herbarium, they had what one might call a spice rack but for plants and look what I found among their collection! Yes! Echinacea seeds! This trip was very fulfilling and definitely worth the 4-hour round trip Metra ride!       This morning half of our team set out to capture some bees! We caught a total of thirty bees of varying species. Once secured in the tube, we set the captured bees in a cooler to “calm them down.” Once the bees were sound asleep we removed pollen from their fuzzy little bodies to study further. But have no fear! The lil guys were soon returned to their home site, free and in the wild! All in all a very successful morning and we await the next time we get to wrangle some little fuzzy pollinators. It’s been under twelve hours since I last posted, so hopefully you’re not sick of me! Today has been all about catching pollinating bees in the act. Three separate teams made the rounds catching bees pollinating Echinacea. Once we caught those busy little bees, we brought them back to the fridge to cool down (so they wouldn’t sting us!) and then we worked at collecting the pollen from their legs and body. I’ll leave you with a little limerick about bees. In a meadow, I chased buzzing bees, With my cup, oh, the thrill it did tease. But those critters so sly, Dodged and soared through the sky, And I was left with just grass on my knees. |
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