This experiment was designed to quantify how well Echinaceaangustifolia populations are adapted to their local environments. In 2008, Amy Dykstra collected achenes from Echinacea populations in western South Dakota, central South Dakota, and Minnesota and then sowed seeds from all three sources into experimental plots near each collection site. Each year, Team Echinacea takes a demographic census at the western South Dakota and Minnesota plots; we abandoned the central South Dakota plot after it was inadvertently sprayed in 2009, killing all the Echinacea.
In 2023, we found a total of 119 basal plants and 8 flowering plants. All of the flowering plants observed in 2023 were in the western South Dakota sowing site. Only 2 plants in the Minnesota site have ever produced flowers. In contrast, 31 plants flowered in the western South Dakota site in 2022 alone. Mortality has been much higher in Minnesota than in western South Dakota; thus, the total number of plants at each sowing site is now about equal.
Surviving plants at GRNG (Grand River National Grassland in western South Dakota) and HL (Hegg Lake in Minnesota) in annual censuses from 2014-2023.
Start year: 2008
Location: Grand River National Grassland (Western South Dakota), Samuel H. Ordway Prairie (Central South Dakota), Staffanson Prairie Preserve (West Central Minnesota), and Hegg Lake WMA (West Central Minnesota).
Data collected: Plant fitness measurements (plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of longest leaf)
Samples or specimens collected: Heads from all flowering plants; Amy stores the heads in her office at Bethel University.
Products:Dykstra, A. B. 2013. Seedling recruitment in fragmented populations of Echinacea angustifolia. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Minnesota. PDF
You can read more about Dykstra’s local adaptation experiment and see a map of the seed source sites on the background page for this experiment.
This experiment was designed to quantify how well Echinaceaangustifolia populations are adapted to their local environments. In 2008, Amy Dykstra collected achenes from Echinacea populations in western South Dakota, central South Dakota, and Minnesota and then sowed seeds from all three sources into experimental plots near each collection site. Each year, Team Echinacea takes a demographic census at the western South Dakota and Minnesota plots; we abandoned the central South Dakota plot after it was inadvertently sprayed in 2009, killing all the Echinacea.
In 2022, during the annual census of the experimental plots, we found 135 living Echinacea plants, including 102 basal plants and 33 flowering plants. All but two of the flowering plants were in the South Dakota plot. A wetter-than-average spring may have contributed to the flowering output of these plants. The South Dakota prairies were as green as Amy can remember seeing.
Pictured is one of the flowering plants in the South Dakota plot. We performed the census on June 30, before the flowering heads started dehiscing pollen.
Start year: 2008
Location: Grand River National Grassland (Western South Dakota), Samuel H. Ordway Prairie (Central South Dakota), Staffanson Prairie Preserve (West Central Minnesota), and Hegg Lake WMA (West Central Minnesota).
Data collected: Plant fitness measurements (plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of longest leaf)
Samples collected: Heads from all flowering plants; Amy stores the heads in her office at Bethel University.
Products: Dykstra, A. B. 2013. Seedling recruitment in fragmented populations of Echinacea angustifolia. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Minnesota. PDF
You can read more about Dykstra’s local adaptation experiment and see a map of the seed source sites on the background page for this experiment.
This experiment was designed to quantify how well Echinaceaangustifolia populations are adapted to their local environments. In 2008, Amy Dykstra collected achenes from Echinacea populations in western South Dakota, central South Dakota, and Minnesota and then sowed seeds from all three sources into experimental plots near each collection site. Each year, Team Echinacea takes a demographic census at the western South Dakota and Minnesota plots; we abandoned the central South Dakota plot after it was inadvertently sprayed in 2009, killing all the Echinacea.
In 2021, during the annual census of the experimental plots, we found 134 living Echinacea plants, including 121 basal plants and 13 flowering plants. Only one of the flowering plants was in the Minnesota plot; the other 12 were in the South Dakota plot. For more details and graphs, please read this brief report:
Location: Grand River National Grassland (Western South Dakota), Samuel H. Ordway Prairie (Central South Dakota), Staffanson Prairie Preserve (West Central Minnesota), and Hegg Lake WMA (West Central Minnesota).
Data collected: Plant fitness measurements (plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of longest leaf)
Samples collected: Heads from all flowering plants
Products: Dykstra, A. B. 2013. Seedling recruitment in fragmented populations of Echinacea angustifolia. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Minnesota. PDF
You can read more about Dykstra’s local adaptation experiment and see a map of the seed source sites on the background page for this experiment.
This experiment was designed to study how well adapted Echinacea populations are to their local environments. Amy collected achenes from Echinacea populations in western South Dakota, central South Dakota, and Minnesota, and then sowed seeds from all three sources into experimental plots near each collection site. You can read more about the experiment and see a map of the seed source sites on the background page for this experiment.
This summer, during our annual census of the experimental plots, we found 67 living Echinacea plants in the western South Dakota plot, including 9 flowering plants. We found 116 living plants, including one flowering plant in the Minnesota plot. This was the first flowering plant in the Minnesota plot! (We abandoned the central SD plot after it was inadvertently sprayed in 2009, killing all the Echinacea). For more details and graphs, please read this brief report.
First flowering plant in the MN local adaptation plot!
Start year: 2008
Location: Grand River National Grassland (Western South
Dakota), Samuel H. Ordway Prairie (Central South Dakota), Staffanson Prairie
Preserve (West Central Minnesota), and Hegg Lake WMA (West Central Minnesota).
Data/ materials collected: Plant fitness measurements
(plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of longest
leaf), heads from all flowering plants
Products: Dykstra,
A. B. 2013. Seedling recruitment in fragmented populations of Echinacea angustifolia. Ph.D.
Dissertation. University of Minnesota. PDF
This summer, Amy and members of Team Echinacea continued to monitor the progress of Echinacea plants in her local adaptation plots. We found 221 basal plants, but no flowering plants this year. Amy has 3 sites: Western South Dakota, Central South Dakota, and West Central Minnesota. At each site achenes from all sites have been sowed. Team Echinacea is able to help with the assessment of survival and fitness traits of the individuals in the Minnesota plot.
Amy presents her local adaptation research so far at lunch this summer.
Start year: 2008
Location: Grand River National Grassland (Western South Dakota), Samuel H. Ordway Prairie (Central South Dakota), Staffanson Prairie Preserve (West Central Minnesota), and Hegg Lake WMA (West Central Minnesota).
Data collected: Plant fitness measurements (plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of longest leaf)
You can find more information about Amy’s local adaptation experiment and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
In 2008, Amy Dykstra began an experiment to study how adapted Echinacea populations are to their local environments. She collected achenes from three populations distributed across a wide section of Echinacea angustifolia’s range, from Western South Dakota to our study site in Western Minnesota. She established a plot near each collection site where she sowed achenes from all sites. Since then, Amy has assessed survival and fitness traits of the individuals in her plots annually.
The exciting news about this experiment is that three plants flowered this year: two had one head each, and one had vertical development of its stem, but did not form a flowering head. All three were in the Western South Dakota plot and originated from Western Minnesota seed. This summer was the first time that Amy saw any flowering in this experiment. We hope for more flowering in the future so that Amy can analyze how local adaptation affects adult life stages of Echinacea.
Amy saw the first flowering plants in the local adaptation experiment in 2016
Start year: 2008
Location: Grand River National Grassland (Western South Dakota), Samuel H. Ordway Prairie (Central South Dakota), Staffanson Prairie Preserve (West Central Minnesota), and Hegg Lake WMA (West Central Minnesota).
Data collected: Amy collected plant fitness measurements (plant status, number of rosettes, number of leaves, and length of longest leaf) electronically.
You can find more information about Amy’s local adaptation experiment and links to previous flog posts regarding this experiment at the background page for the experiment.
Plenty of basal leaves but no flowering in Amy Dykstra’s local adaptation experimental plots in 2015
In 2008, Amy Dykstra began an experiment to study how adapted Echinacea populations are to their local environments. She collected achenes from three populations distributed across a wide section of Echinacea angustifolia’s range, from Western South Dakota to our study site in Western Minnesota. She established a plot near each collection site where she sowed achenes from all sites. Since then, Amy has assessed survival and fitness traits of the individuals in her plots annually.
Amy expected to see increasing proportions of achenes emerging as seedlings with decreasing distance between the seed source and the sowing site. Instead she found that seedling emergence increased by sowing site from western to central South Dakota to Minnesota, and that at each site achenes from Minnesota and western South Dakota had higher seedling emergence than those collected at the central South Dakota site. This result suggests that there isn’t evidence of local adaptation in Echinacea seedling establishment, but that source population matters, potentially due to maternal effects.
After six years of tracking survival to fitness, however, there is some indication that local adaptation may play a role in later life stages. No individuals have flowered yet in any of the plots, which is somewhat surprising for Echinacea angustifolia individuals which are typically 5-7 years old before flowering for the first time. Amy will continue this study in 2016, so stay tuned for updates!
Start year: 2008
Location: Grand River National Grassland (Western South Dakota), Samuel H. Ordway Prairie (Central South Dakota), Staffanson Prairie Preserve (West Central Minnesota), and Hegg Lake WMA (West Central Minnesota).
Overlaps with: Dykstra’s interpopulation crosses
Team members who have worked on this project: Amy Dykstra, flog posts written by Amy may provide additional detail about activities associated the the development and continuing progress on this project.
Thanks to some critical help from Team Echinacea, we were able to complete the 2015 census on the local adaptation experiment this week. We found a total of 282 live Echinacea plants this summer (compared to 372 in 2014). 96 of the survivors live in the western South Dakota plot, and 186 in the Hegg Lake plot. None of the plants have yet flowered, though some of the western SoDak plants seem to be large enough (see photo). Maybe next year!
Last week I assessed Echinacea flowering phenology at Grand River National Grassland south of Lemmon, SD, Samuel H. Ordway Prairie west of Leola, SD and Staffanson Prairie near Kensington, MN. Here are a couple of figures I generated to compare phenology at the 3 sites.
First, I made pie charts to show the relative proportions of flowering plants.
Next, to show more quantitative information, I used a stacked bar graph.
These figures illustrate that the flowering phenology is most advanced at Staffanson and least advanced at S. H. Ordway Prairie. Nevertheless, I am encouraged that there are lots of flowering plants at all 3 sites, suggesting that a long-distance cross involving plants from these 3 locations would be possible. I am considering tackling that project next summer, to assess whether there would be lower seedling recruitment from between-population crosses compared to within-population crosses at these 3 sites.
Here’s a picture of some flowering Echinacea at Perch Lake, which is near the S. H. Ordway prairie.
Here is a picture of 2 of the 3 surviving plants in my experimental plot at Perch Lake Waterfowl Production Area, southwest of Leola, SD. Each of the 2 Echinacea seedlings is marked with a red party toothpick. We (Shelby, Janelle and I) found them in May when we censused my 2 SoDak plots. We found a total of 10 new seedlings at the Perch Lake site, all of which had 2 cotyledons but no true leaves. I returned to Perch Lake last Thursday, July 8. Sadly, 7 of the seedlings were gone, but I was able to verify that the 3 survivors are, indeed, Echinacea angustifolia.
The Perch Lake site is 1 of 3 experimental plots I (and my assistants) sowed in November 2008, to ask whether Echinacea from western South Dakota, central South Dakota and Minnesota exhibit local adaptation in seedling recruitment. More background and results from the 1st 2009 census are displayed in a poster that you can find in the September 2009 archives of the FLOG.
Unfortunately, the Perch Lake site was sprayed with a combination of herbicides (Tordon and Telar) in August 2009. The treatment was lethal to ALL the Echinacea seedlings that emerged in 2009. Thus, the 3 surviving seedlings from this year are the only living Echinacea in this plot! Fortunately, I was able to census the plot shortly after it was sprayed, and I am confident that I found the survivors up to that point.
I plan to present a talk about my local adaptation experiment at the North American Prairie conference in August.
