As you can see in this lovely motivational diagram, we finally finished counting last year’s achenes from the 1999 experimental plot.

The next step for this batch will be to collect a random sample of achenes from each flower head to estimate pollination rates. We can tell whether an achene is “full” (contains an embryo) or “empty” (does not contain an embryo) based on its weight. We can estimate pollination rates based on the ratio of full and empty achenes. However, there are some achenes whose weight does not give us any information about pollination. Some are so small they never produce an embryo, some are damaged by insects, some are damaged during removal from the flower head, etc. If we weighed these, they would show up as “empty”, even though they may have been pollinated. Therefore. when we select a random achenes for weighing, we have to differentiate between those that are informative about the pollination environment (full or empty) and those that are not informative (small, sterile, damaged, etc.).

For this batch, we are starting a new randomization protocol that assigns achenes to categories of “informative” (possibly full or definitely empty) and “uninformative” (sterile, undersized, damaged). Both are part of the random sample, but only the informative achenes are weighed. It’s a subtle distinction from what we were doing before, but it will be important for our results.

Now that we have reached our goal in counting, we have started processing the heads we harvested in 2012. Today volunteers Katharine and Sam are trying out a new protocol for removing the achenes from Echinacea heads. Previously, we through away any dust left over from removing achenes. This time, we are saving the dust in separate envelopes. That way, we will be able to figure out whether the dust we throw away contains fragments of achenes. Also, we will be able to compare scans with and without the extra dust to see whether removing dust makes a difference in the accuracy of our count data.

This week has brought us further along on our goal of counting and randomizing all of the achenes from 2011. Here is volunteer Kathryn Eber, looking pleased to have her picture taken. Thanks to her and the other volunteers, we are nearly finished counting the 4000 batch of the 2011 harvest.

On Wednesday October 31st, we welcomed several students from Lakeforest College for the first session of a four week internship. Meet Randen, who is working with me to learn how to identify ants:

When he came in, he had no experience identifying insects or using taxonomic keys. By the time he left, he was able to identify ants to genus and–for some genera–to species. His project is to compare ant species collected from burned and unburned units of the Staffenson prairie preserve. Ants are a crucial component to terrestrial ecosystems: they move dirt, they prey on many critters, and they protect other critters like aphids. If fire influences the community of ant species in a prairie remnant, there may be cascading effects throughout the ecosystem. Naturally, I’m excited to see what Randen finds out during his project.

Bill Wallin counting Echinacea achenes (2011).

Stuart is back!

While Stuart worked on computer stuff – prepping for rechecks at Landfill and nearest neighbors at Staffanson – Katherine and I finished off demo rechecks at Aanenson.

Apart from computer stuff, Stuart also finished seedling refinds at Randt (2 there), then set out for demo rechecks at Steven’s Approach. Katherine and I joined him after Aanenson. The three of us finished demo rechecks at a rate of ~1 plant per minute.

After lunch, we set out for demo rechecks at Landfill. On the way out we had an interesting and informative chat with Steve, a beekeeper about bees and pesticides etc.

At Landfill, we worked as a trio again. While Stuart staked with GPS, Katherine & I did demo, leapfrogging plants. We finished off 120 recheck points in about 2 hours, so again, rate of 1 plant per minute. We also flagged and demo-ed sling refind plants while at Landfill.

Lastly, we “(took) a moment to revel in the prairie that hasn’t been turned into landfill”. And rewarded ourselves with rootbeer floats. Katherine and I had too much ice cream that we didn’t have much appetite for dinner.

This morning, Team Echinacea headed out to Loeffler’s Corner to work on seedling re-finds. This site was a breeze compared with the challenges posed by Riley and KJ’s. While the plants at Riley are frequently disturbed by mowing and the plants at KJ’s are so dense that they’re practically growing on top of each other, the plants at Loeffler’s Corner are nicely spread out with easily findable seedlings.

In the afternoon, everyone made good progress on individual projects. Jill and I are both trying to wrap up our research in time for our last day on Friday. Jill and Katherine are sorting through the contents of Jill’s pitfall traps and preserving the ants that they won’t have time to identify for future study. Stuart and I are working to prepare my data to be analyzed in the winter when I hope to have an independent study to work on analysis. Maria is looking for Dicanthelium plants from which she can gather pollen in order to do a pollen viability test.

Here’s a picture of a neat plant that I found at Loeffler’s Corner. I think the leaves are somehow sharing the same petiole. Pretty cool!