Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: 2011. Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration of Hegg Lake WMA. Since 2011, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration, taken flowering phenology, and collected demography on the non-native plant. We have decapitated all flowering E. pallida each year to avoid cross-pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. Each year, we record the number of heads on each plant and the number of rosettes, collect precise GPS points for each individual, and cut off all the heads before they produce fruits.
This year, we cut E. pallida heads on June 22nd. We installed pollinator exclusion bags on select heads of 10 plants rather than immediately cutting them as a part of our quantity and quality of Echinacea pollen and nectar experiment. Overall, we found and shot 73 flowering E. pallida plants, and 193 heads in total, averaging 2.6 heads per plant. These non-native plants were hearty with an average rosette count of 6 rosettes and an individual with a maximum of 20 rosettes! We only did surv on plants with new tags this year, a total of 4. We did not take phenology data on E. pallida this year.
You can find more information about E. pallida flowering phenology and previous flog posts on the background page for the experiment.
Location: near exPt8. Start year: Crossing in 2011, planting in 2012. Experimental plot 6 was the first E. angustifolia x E. pallida hybrid plot planted by Team Echinacea. A total of 66 Echinacea hybrids were originally planted. All individuals have E. angustifolia dams and E. pallida sires. In 2023, we visited 23 positions and found 17 living plants. This year, 3 plants flowered in this plot; this is the first year any plants have flowered in p6! These were allowed to reach day one or two of flowering in order to assess their pollen color before we decapitated them.
Flowering plant in exPt06! Note the paler pollen color compared to the typical E. Angustifolia
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: Crossing in 2012, planting in 2013. Experimental plot 7 is the second E. pallida x E. angustifolia plot. It contains conspecific crosses of each species as well as reciprocal hybrids, totaling 294 individuals. This summer, we visited 150 positions, and of these plants, we found evidence of 121 living plants. We did not use pollinator exclusion bags in exPt07 this year. There were 19 flowering plants this year; from these we harvested 32 heads. We have not yet used the pedigree data to see what number of these plants are hybrids or not.
You can find more information about experimental plot 7 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: 2014. Experimental plot 9 is a hybrid plot, but, unlike the other two hybrid plots, we do not have a perfect pedigree of the plants. That is because the E. angustifolia and E. pallida maternal plants used to generate seedlings for exPt9 were open-pollinated. We need to do paternity analysis to find the true hybrid nature of these crosses (assuming there are any hybrids). We did not use pollinator exclusion bags in exPt09 this year. There were originally 745 seedlings planted in exPt9. We searched at 292 positions and found evidence of 238 living plants in 2023. Of these individuals, 30 were flowering. We harvested 39 heads from this plot!
You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.
Data collected for exp679: For all three plots, we collected flowering status, rosette count, leaf length, head count and head height. All measuring data can be found in the cgdata repository (~/cgdata/summer2023/measureGood). Measuring data should be uploaded to SQL database eventually, but it is not currently there for 2023. For experimental plots 7 and 9, we also took phenology data starting on July 7th and ending on July 12th, which we scaled back from previous years. This data can be found in the cgdata repository (~cgdata/summer2023/p79phenology).
Data collected for E. pallida demography: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, GPS points shot for each E. pallida with a new tag. Find demo and surv records as well as GPS points in demap.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: 2011. Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration of Hegg Lake WMA. Since 2011, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration, taken flowering phenology, and collected demography on the non-native plant. We have decapitated all flowering E. pallida each year to avoid cross-pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. Each year, we record the number of heads on each plant and the number of rosettes, collect precise GPS points for each individual, and cut off all the heads before they produce fruits. This year, we cut E. pallida heads off on June 28th. Overall, we found and shot 224 flowering E. pallida plants, and 824 heads in total, averaging 3.7 heads per plant. These non-native plants were hearty with an average rosette count of 8 rosettes and an individual with a maximum of 65 rosettes! We did not take phenology data on E. pallida this year.
You can find more information about E. pallida flowering phenology and previous flog posts on the background page for the experiment.
Location: near exPt8. Start year: Crossing in 2011, planting in 2012Experimental plot 6 was the first E. angustifolia x E. pallida hybrid plot planted by Team Echinacea. A total of 66 Echinacea hybrids were originally planted. All individuals have E. angustifolia dams and E. pallida sires. In 2022, we visited exPt06 on June 27th visited 28 positions and found 18 living plants. No plants have flowered in this plot yet.
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: Crossing in 2012, planting in 2013. Experimental plot 7 is the second E. pallida x E. angustifolia plot. It contains conspecific crosses of each species as well as reciprocal hybrids, totaling 294 individuals. This summer, we visited 215 positions, and of these plants, only 119 plants were still alive. When measuring, we put pollen exclusion bags over every flowering head. There were 28 flowering plants this year, which is the most flowering plants in this plot to-date. From these 28 flowering plants, we harvested 28 heads. We have not yet used the pedigree data to see what number of these plants are hybrids or not.
You can find more information about experimental plot 7 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA. Start year: 2014. Experimental plot 9 is a hybrid plot, but, unlike the other two hybrid plots, we do not have a perfect pedigree of the plants. That is because the E. angustifolia and E. pallida maternal plants used to generate seedlings for exPt9 were open-pollinated. We need to do paternity analysis to find the true hybrid nature of these crosses (assuming there are any hybrids). There were originally 745 seedlings planted in exPt9. We searched at 361 positions and found 247 living plants in 2022. When measuring, we placed pollen exclusion bags over every flowering head. Of these individuals, 49 were flowering. We harvested 109 heads from this plot!
You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.
Data collected for exp679: For all three plots, we collected flowering status, rosette count, leaf length, head count and head height. All measuring data can be found in the cgdata repository (~/cgdata/summer2022/measureGood). Measuring data should be uploaded to SQL database eventually, but it is not currently there for 2022. For experimental plots 7 and 9, we also took phenology data periodically through the summer starting on June 24th and ending on August 5th, which can be found in the cgdata repository (~cgdata/summer2022/p79phenology).
Data collected for E. pallida demography: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, GPS points shot for each E. pallida. Find demo and surv records aiisummer2022 repository. GPS coordinates can be found in demap.
Echinacea pallida flowering phenology:Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration of Hegg Lake WMA. Since 2011, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration, taken flowering phenology, and collected demography on the non-native. We have decapitated all flowering E. pallida each year to avoid cross-pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. Each year, we record the number of heads on each plant and the number of rosettes. We also get precise gps coordinates of all plants and then chop the flowering heads off! This year, we cut E. pallida heads off on July 6th and 8th. We shot gps points as they were found; in the fall, we revisited the plants and did not find any stragglers.
Overall, we found and shot 143 flowering E. pallida plants, and 433 heads in total, averaging 3.02 heads per plant. The average rosette count was 5, the maximum was 27 rosettes — absolutely massive!! When recording data on E. pallida, we forgot that we needed phenology data, so the data from the 6th does not have any phen at all, and the data from the 8th is in the demo form in notes as a string. We do not have very accurate data on phenology of E. pallida this year, but our estimated first day flowering is June 22nd.
Pallida demo/cut/surv involved 7 different people working a total of 1170 minutes (19.5 hours) on 3 separate days.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: 2011
You can find more information about E. pallida flowering phenology and previous flog posts on the background page for the experiment.
exPt6: Experimental plot 6 was the first E. angustifolia x E. pallida hybrid plot planted by Team Echinacea. A total of 66 Echinacea hybrids were originally planted; all have E. angustifolia dams and E. pallida sires. In 2021, we visited 31 positions and found 15 living plants. No plants have flowered in this plot yet.
Location: near exPt8 Start year: Crossing in 2011, planting in 2012
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
exPt7: Planted in 2013, experimental plot #7 was the second E. pallida x E. angustifolia plot. It contains conspecific crosses of each species as well as reciprocal hybrids. There were 294 plants planted. This summer, we visited 176, and of these plants, only 136 plants were still alive. There were 13 flowering plants this year! This is the most flowering plants that this plot has produced. These 26 flowering plants produced 26 heads. We have not yet used the pedigree data to see what number of these plants are hybrids or not.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: Crossing in 2012, planting in 2013
You can find more information about experimental plot 7 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
exPt9: Experimental plot 9 is a hybrid plot, but, unlike the other two hybrid plots, we do not have a perfect pedigree of the plants. That is because the E. angustifolia and E. pallida maternal plants used to generate seedlings for exPt9 were open-pollinated. We need to do paternity analysis to find the true hybrid nature of these crosses (assuming there are any hybrids). There were originally 745 seedlings planted in exPt9. We found 261 living plants in 2021, 20 of which were flowering, with 42 heads! There were 138 plants that we searched for but could not find.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: 2014
You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.
Measuring p6/7/9 involved 8 different people working a total of 1380 minutes (23 hours) on 2 separate days.
Experimental plots 6, 7, and 9 all burned this year. The peak in number of flowering plants in both p7 and p9 this year is indicative of the effect fire can have on flowering in Echinacea. In the past we have bagged heads in these plots but this year we did not.
Data collected for exp679: For all three plots, we collected rosette number, length of all leaves, and herbivory for each plant. We used visors to collect data electronically, and it is still being processed to be put into our SQL database.
Data collected for E. pallida demography and phenology: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, gps points shot for each E. pallida. Find demo and phenology visor records in the aiisummer2021 repository. GPS coordinates can be found in demap. As mentioned above, all phenology data from July 8th can be found in demo. For more details, see aiiSummer2021/demo/pallidaPhen.R.
The crew poses after knocking out measuring half of p7 and p9
Echinacea pallida Flowering phenology:Echinacea pallida is a species of Echinacea that is not native to Minnesota. It was mistakenly introduced to our study area during a restoration of Hegg Lake WMA. Since 2011, Team Echinacea has visited the pallida restoration and taken flowering phenology and collected demography on the non-native. We have decapitated all flowering Echinacea pallida each year to avoid pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. Each year we record the number of heads on each plant and the number of rosettes. We also get precise gps coordinates of all plants and then chop the flowering heads off! This year we cut E. pallida heads off on June 30th. We revisited plants and shot gps pointson September 17th 2020. When shooting points, we found two E. pallida plants that had missed the big decapitation event. We harvested the heads before any fruit dispersed.
Overall, we found and shot 99 flowering E. pallida. On average, each plant produced 1.96 flowering heads, with a total of 194 beheadings. The average rosette count was 6.1, the maximum was 31 rosettes — absolutely massive!!
Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: 2011
exPt6: Experimental plot 6 was the first E. angustifolia x E. pallida hybrid plot planted by Team Echinacea. A total of 66 Echinacea hybrids were originally planted; all have E. angustifolia dams and E. pallida sires. In 2020, we visited 40 positions and found 22 living plants. No plants have flowered in this plot yet. Location: near exPt8 Year started: Crossing in 2011, planting in 2012
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
exPt7: Planted in 2013, experimental plot # 7 was the second E. pallida x E. angustifolia plot. It contains conspecific crosses of each species as well as reciprocal hybrids. There were 294 plants planted, of these plants only 148 plants were still alive. There were 2 flowering plants this year! One was the progeny of a E. pallida x E pallida cross and the other of these flowering plants was a hybrid of E. pallida X E. angustifolia! This is the first hybrid to bloom. Anna M. investigated the compatibility of this hybrid with E. pallida and E. angustifolia by performing a series of hand crosses.
Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: Crossing in 2012, planting in 2013
exPt9: Experimental plot 9 is a hybrid plot, but, unlike the other two hybrid plots, we do not have a perfect pedigree of the plants. That is because E. angustifolia and E. pallida maternal plants used to generate seedlings for exPt9 were open-pollinated. We need to do paternity analysis to find the true hybrid nature of these crosses (assuming there are any hybrids). There were originally 745 seedlings planted in exPt9. We found 391 living plants in 2020, three of which were flowering! Two of these plants were technically “flowering” because they produced buds, but they produced zero flowering heads because no flowers ever opened (no pollen or fruits). There were 105 plants that we searched for but could not find. Location: Hegg Lake WMA Start year: 2014
You can find out more information about experimental plot 9 and flog posts mentioning the experiment on the background page for the experiment.
There were a total of three flowering heads between the three plots, we collected flowering phenology data on these heads. Flowering started on June 28th and ended between July 7th and 23rd. There were two additional flowering plants that only produced duds.
Data collected for exp679: For all three plots we collected rosette number, length of all leaves, and herbivory for each plant. We used visors to collect data electronically and it is still being processed to be put into our SQL database.
Data collected for E. pallida demography and phenology: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, gps points shot for each E. pallida. Find demo and phenology visor records in the aiisummer2020 repository. GPS coordinates can be found in demap.
Look at this three-headed E. pallida monster we found! Shown at the beginning and end of season
Last Friday, I was dispatched by Stuart to find the number of plants/ achenes planted in each experimental plot, along with the number alive as of a recent year (2017-2019, based on the plot). Although records of some plots were a bit harder to come across that others, I was able to compile data from each plot (besides p10 – planted 2019 – data coming soon). This would not have been possible without the help of Gretel, so thanks GK! I have attached a small datasheet with the survival data.
In the history of the Echinacea Project, the team has sown 31,888 Echinacea viable achenes in experimental plots. There were many more sown that likely did not have a seed. Team members found 3634 seedlings from these seeds, not including Amy D’s experimental plot 3 and remnant seedling refinds. The team has planted 18,869 Echinacea seedlings in experimental plots, not including p10 – planted at West Central Area HS in 2019. Finally, 7090 Echinacea are currently alive in the experimental plots!
In 2018, we searched for 30 of the original 66 Echinacea hybrid plants. We found 29 Echinacea hybrids… which shows incredibly low mortality! This means that 40% of the original cohort is still alive, with the survival rate this winter of more than 96%! Of the surviving plants, the average leaf count was 2.2 leaves, the longest basal leaf was 14.75cm. These plants are considerably smaller than their exPt9 counterparts, despite being several years older.
This big bluestem made finding these tiny plants pretty hard!
This plot was originally developed for Josh Drizin’s experiment with exotic grasses, but 66 hybrids of Echinacea angustifolia and Echinacea pallida were also planted in 2012. In 2011, Gretel and Nicholas Goldsmith performed reciprocal crosses between 5 non-native pallida plants found at Hegg Lake and 31 angustifolia plants in P1. These plants have been revisited each summer since then.
Data collected: Status, rosette count, longest leaf measurement, and number of leaves for each plant. Exported to CGData.
Products: Nicholas Goldsmith wrote a summary of the crosses he conducted in 2011. A chapter of his dissertation, which he defended in December, reports on the fitness of hybrids compared to plants of either species.
You can find more information about experimental plot 6 and previous flog posts about it on the background page for the experiment.
In 2017, we searched for 56 of the original 66 Echinacea hybrid plants. We found 28 Echinacea hybrids, and 2 of the Echinacea hybrids we found just had dead leaves from this year. This means that 42% of the original cohort is still alive, with the survival rate this winter of 78%. Of the surviving plants, the highest leaf count was 5 leaves, the longest basal leaf was 35cm, and only one plant had more than one basal rosette.
Most plants we measured in exPt6 looked like this.
This plot was originally developed for Josh Drizin’s experiment with exotic grasses, but 66 hybrids of Echinacea angustifolia and Echinacea pallida were also planted in 2012. In 2011, Gretel and Nicholas Goldsmith performed reciprocal crosses between 5 non-native pallida plants found at Hegg Lake and 31 angustifolia plants in P1. These plants have been revisited each summer since then.
Although originally used as part of Josh Drizin’s experiment with exotic grasses, this plot also has hybrids of Echinacea angustifolia and Echinacea pallida. Gretel and Nicholas Goldsmith performed reciprocal crosses between 5 non-native pallida plants found at Hegg Lake and 31 angustifolia plants in P1 and planted 66 seedlings between grasses in 2012. These plants have been revisited each summer since then. This year, on August 3rd, Laura Leventhal and I found 36 of the original 66 plants – a sharp decline from the 55 found last year. This means that 55% of the original cohort is still alive, with the survival rate this winter of 65%. Of the surviving plants, only three had more than one rosette.
In 2015, we continued an experiment investigating fitness of Echinacea angustifolia x E. pallida hybrids. This year, out the the original 66 plants, 55 were still alive. That’s an impressive survival rate of 83% since they were planted in 2012. The mean leaf length of the plants was roughly 16 cm. In the summer of 2011, Nicholas Goldsmith and Gretel Kiefer performed reciprocal crosses between 5 plants of Echinacea pallida (non-native) found in a prairie restoration at the Hegg Lake Wildlife Management Area and 31 plants of the native Echinacea angustifolia from experimental plot 1 to determine the hybridization potential of these two species. In the summer of 2012, team members planted 66 seedlings.
Here is the latest draft of my proposal to investigate the survival rates of Aphis echinaceae on Echinacea hybrids and the impact they have on host fitness:
I’m excited to get started. In addition to my main project, I will be conducting and coordinating a variety of side projects related to aphids and Echinacea hybrids:
1. Katherine Muller and Lydia English’s aphid addition/exclusion experiment in P1.
2. Assessing fitness of the two Echinacea species and their hybrids in P6 (Josh’s Garden) and P7 (at Hegg Lake).
3. Recording flowering phenology of Echinacea pallida at Hegg Lake, where they were planted in a prairie restoration.
