Last summer I conducted a biweekly survey of aphids and ants in the common garden, an experimental prairie restoration containing Echinacea from various remnant populations. I was interested in the spatial distribution of aphids and ants within and across years. This year I plan to scale down my survey to once a month, beginning next Friday. Here’s a detailed protocol:
|
||||
|
I couldn’t make the Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference, but I made a poster. It describes preliminary results from an aphid addition/exclusion experiment I conducted in the summer of 2011. Specifically, it examines the question of whether aphid infestation influences the presence of leaf damage by other herbivores. It’s been a busy week for everybody. Plants are blooming, pollen is shedding, and everyone is dashing about madly to catch the field season before it passes us by. I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get ready for my aphid addition/exclusion experiment. Everyone has been a wonderful help setting up cages in this sweltering heat. My goal for this week is to finish my first round of experimental treatments: exclusion on Thursday and addition on Friday. Before then, I need to finish setting up nets and teach everyone how to wrangle aphids. Here is a protocol I wrote up to assist the teaching process and the data sheets I mention in the protocol. These are works in progress, so any feedback is appreciated. AphidExclusionCollectionProtocol2011.doc aphidcollectionoutsideExpt.xls aphidinfestation.xls Katherine |
||||
|
© 2026 The Echinacea Project - All Rights Reserved - Log in Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||||