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The end of another week has snuck up on us. Kory left today which means Team Echinacea is down to just Ilse and myself. We’ll be around until early to mid-October or until all the field work is done for the season. Can you believe we’ll still have a couple heads flowering on Labor Day?!
Today we harvested for the second time in CG1. The three of us didn’t expect many heads to be ready, especially since 3 days ago we harvested ~1% of the flowering heads this year (and like I just mentioned, there are still heads flowering!) but holy moly! There was a sharp increase in the heads harvested today. I would estimate we got roughly 110 heads, which would put us around 6% complete. Maybe “holy moly” was a bit dramatic, but it seemed like a lot more than earlier this week. Many of these heads were also in the qGen2 crossing experiment which is great since we’ll want to get those heads drying and dissected as soon as possible in order to plant the achenes this fall (and before it snows).
We also continued surveying and entering demography information this week. Today Ilse, Kory, and I headed to the Landfill site where we flagged all the flowering plants and took information on how many heads they have and their GPS coordinates. We’ll still need Stuart to look over that site to make sure we have found all the flowering plants (try as we might, we seem to always miss a couple) but it’s been great to make some progress with the bigger sites.
This past week we also decided things might be a bit more interesting here in Douglas county if we renamed some of the remnants to be more exciting and/or secretive. Thus far we’ve come up with:
— Treasure Islandfill (and therefore Around Treasure Islandfill, North West of Treasure Islandfill, etc)
— King’s crossing (formerly railroad crossing)
— Loeffler’s Hollow
— Staffanson Prairie Plunder
— Lost Liatris Hill
Let us know if you think of any others. Be creative! We’ll want next year’s Team Echinacea curious and intrigued by the possible mysteries at each of the remnants.
Andddd speaking of Liatris, Ilse and I found a beautiful white Liatris at Hegg Lake while we were harvesting Dayvis’ E. pallida and E. angustifolia plants. Check it out!
Hopefully this week was the last of the heat wave! I’m ready for it to go back to being in the 70s. Have a good weekend!
Lydia
Today was a very productive day! In the morning Ilse did phenology, and came back with great news! There are only seven heads left; flowering is almost done! Lydia worked on her aphid experiment and I worked on my poster. Around 10 am Ilse and I went to SPP and worked on the Demography project.
In the afternoon Lydia (one again) worked on her aphid project, and Ilse and I payed a visit to Hegg lake to do Demography on the recruitment sights. Overall a very productive day for Team Echinacea.
On a side note, this little blue gem just started flowering!
Kelly’s data from 2012 modified for use in RStudio
master_datasheet_MODIFIED.csv
We wrapped up the week with a productive Friday. In the morning Kory headed out to Hegg Lake, while Sarah assessed phenology in the common garden (I think we were down to 75 heads today). Ilse and I have been slowly repainting the heads in the qGen2 crossing experiment. Nothing is ready to be harvested from the experiment yet, but it’s good to revisit the plants and stay ahead of any paint flaking off. Even without painting the entire head (a mistake I was making earlier this week) it’s still a slow process. Here’s one I finished today. I still may be going a little excessive with the paint…
Before lunch we all weeded the common garden for any leftover thistle and birdsfoot trefoil. We managed to pull quite a bit of thistle but didn’t find any trefoil. A good sign? After a quick lunch we split up and went to the remnants Steven’s approach and Riley to finish up the last three seedling searches. We all went our separate ways after that: Ilse continued to re-paint heads, Kory edited the last of his pollinator videos, and I finally finished my “re-checks” in the common garden (I seem to be the slow poke of the group). I also began taking pictures of leaves in the aphid addition/exclusion experiment to count trichomes and see if there are any differences between treatments. I’ll keep everyone posted as that progresses.
Have a good weekend!
Today was a busy day for the four of us. We started work at 8am searching for “can’t finds” in the common garden. Kory and Ilse left after about an hour to GPS Landfill for seedling re-finds. Lydia and I followed soon after. We finished Landfill around 11 and then flagged flowering plants we came across. These will be mapped later on.
Gulls always seem to love hanging around Landfill and they can often be seen huge flocks around the site.
Kory and I went and flagged re-find points at East of Town Hall. Then we met Ilse and Lydia back at the Hjelm house for lunch.
The afternoon consisted of Kory and Ilse going to do seedling re-finds at Randt while Lydia and I did re-finds at East of Town Hall. We finally finished all the seedling re-finds!!!
We also continued our searches in the common garden.
Can you spot the plant I found at a “can’t find” position?
That’s all for today!
– Sarah B
It’s getting lonelier and lonelier at the Hjelm house these days. Today is was just Lydia, Sarah, Kory, and I. The morning consisted of phenology and seedling refinds at SPP. Then after lunch Lydia worked on her aphid addition/exclusion experiment and it seems that the aphids are disliking this heat wave almost as much as us, if not more, as she found an abundance of aphid skeletons this afternoon. I pollentated and repainted some heads while Kory and Sarah knocked off a few rows each of refinds in the cg1. Then the three of us hit up LC and found some seedlings. Here is a seedling from 09, as you probably could have surmised yourself.
The afternoon wrapped up with the most pressing of tasks…some unfinished business if you may. We began the process of finishing up some ice cream that has been in the freezer all summer. Hopefully it wont take too long to finish off the rest of the ice cream, but I’m sure we will manage somehow, working long hours if we must.
Life outside of Kensington has seemed hectic to say the least. I arrived home in Chicago last Thursday, and the next day, Dayvis and I presented our research at the REU symposium at the Field Museum. Shown below is a photo of me in the iconic museum lobby after giving my poster presentation.
The symposium on Friday was a bittersweet culmination of all my work this past summer, and a large part of me wanted to return to the rolling cornfields of Minnesota. I wish Team Echinacea all the best as they begin the long process of wrapping up a summer of research.
Poster pdf:
Schaedel_Poster1.pdf
hello everyone!
Its that time of year again, the time for school to begin. Today was a sad – Stuart, Gretel, Per, and Hattie are heading back to Chicago so they can get settled down before school begins. Today I also realized that this is my second to last week with Team Echinacea! WHERE HAS THIS SUMMER GONE!?!?!?!?
In other non-revelational new, Sarah and I mapped Hegg Lake for my experiment, and finished mapping all of her fragments. Ilse and Lydia started repainting all the QGen heads, so that no data is lost (Lydia went above and beyond the call of duty and painted every bract on all of her echinacea heads).
In the afternoon we stapled all the positions that have remained unfound by Team Echinacea members since 2010 (sad). As well as beginning the common garden re-finds.
For simple ascetics here is a picture of Bee’s Balm from Hegg Lake.
Hope everyone has a nice week!
-Kory
Today was another busy, productive day. Dayvis left for Chicago this morning bringing our number down to six. However, everyone still got a lot done.
In the morning, Lydia and Ilse continued their cross pollination adventures while Mike, Reina, and Pam finished using Helga, counted trichomes, and weighed and pressed leaves. Kory, Stuart, and I went to South of Golf Course and East Elk Lake Road to do seedling re-finds and learn how to use the GPS.
We all met up again for lunch, as usual. The table felt really empty today!
The afternoon was spent measuring the common garden (we’re close to being done). Stuart and I found a little fuzzy friend at row 23, position 912. It was super cute but we suspect it had been eating the E. angustifolia leaves.
Woolly Bear Caterpillar (Pyrrharctia isabella larval stage)
In other news, grasshoppers seem to like eating data sheets
That’s all for today!
Sarah B
Greetings from the Field Museum Chicago!
I have solved the mystery of the mini ants seen in Echinacea heads in the common garden. Below is a picture of the specimen. Those tic marks indicate mm and those small, yellow grains are pollen (Echinacea, I presume):
These ants have been identified as… drumroll please…
Photo courtesy of Alex Wild
Brachymyrmex depilis! Well, perhaps. This species is in need of a taxonomic revision as currently any yellow Brachymyrmex in North America are likely to be classified as depilis. This is one of the smallest ants in North America and usually subterranean.
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