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 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. 🙁
Hi Flog!
I’m sitting in Greater Fort Lauderdale/Broward County Convention Center, taking a break from hearing about all the great work people from all over the place have been doing. I thought that this was a good time to update you on how my poster presentation went (Mostly because the convention center has free wifi and our hotel doesn’t. What?! how can it be 2016 and there not be free wifi…)!
I arrived in lovely* Fort Lauderdale Sunday afternoon, this is the first conference I have been to and It is a little overwhelming but also super exciting! I presented my poster on “The heritability of flowering time and duration in Echinacea angustifolia” last night (Monday). Lots of people stopped by and it was really fun getting to explain all of the work I had done over the past year to them. The poster session lasted for 2 hours but it felt like 15 minutes.
Amy is here with me and she is going to be presenting her poster on Thursday night!
*Lovely – 90 percent humidity and 90 degrees
Below is a link to a PDF of my poster for closer inspection!
esaposter_willreedvf-1-1-1
Hello floggy friends!
This morning, Leah and I left Town Hall to embark on a crazy road trip to Michigan. As we were driving, other members of Team Echinacea participated in the FlekkeFest 5k and witnessed history at the International Vinegar Museum. I’ve only been gone for about 14 hours, but I already miss everyone so much. To pass the time during our car trip, Leah and I shared fun stories from the summer.
Other notable moments from our trip include:
- Witnessing a “noutfit” or what others would call a “neon outfit”
- License plates from 16 different states
- Stopping at Taco Bell more than once
- Listening to “Too Good” only once and “Cold Water” four times (contrary to popular belief by members of Town Hall)
Great roommates must think alike, because as Leah was posting about what members of Team Echinacea taught us, I wanted to share what we taught Team Echinacea during our two months in Minnesota. I’d say we taught them a few valuable life lessons:
- Sometimes you just need to stop and look at all those mushrooms
- If you don’t listen to Drake or Justin Bieber during a car ride, you’re doing it wrong
- If a picture is worth 1000 words, an emoji must be worth so much more
- Not only does singing to aphids get the job done (thanks Abby for that tip), but singing to pollinators and basal plants in experimental plots also does the trick
- Anyone can learn how to cook, but it’s not a good meal unless you add at least 3 different kinds of cheese
- Prairies are pretty cool, but bogs might be better (minus the buckthorn and mosquitoes)
- Dance parties are acceptable at any time of day
- You shouldn’t settle for anything less than perfect (namely the perfect meter stick or fork size)
- Embrace being silly and awkward, because the people mind don’t matter and the people who matter don’t mind.
Finally, I’d just like to thank everyone for all the support and guidance they’ve given me this summer. I’ll never forget this amazing group of people and I can’t wait to see how everyone else’s projects go and I can’t wait to keep snapchatting everyone (*nudge nudge Town Hall fam I’m talking about you).
Catch ya on the flippity flop,
Alyson
 Peace out, Kensington! Ps- Thanks Scott for taking this adorable pic and seeing us off this morning (at the insane hour of 6am)
Good afternoon floggers, today was a busy and hot day in the lab! The air conditioner stopped working this morning, so we all got a bit of a sweat from cleaning and counting. This week has been lonely without Danny, but the volunteers are keeping up the amazing work. We are almost on the 8th bag of Echinacea heads that need to be cleaned and experiment 96_a is done being counted! I finished re-checking a second tray of achene samples, which means I have only one more tray left to re-check. Below is a picture of our current counting progress. We still have a ways to go, but every day moves us forward. Have a great rest of the afternoon floggers!
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