In one of our most pristine tallgrass prairie habitats that remain in west central Minnesota, an accident was made in its management (not by Team Echinacea or members of The Echinacea Project). A Minnesota non-native Echinacea, Echinacea pallida, was seeded into the habitat. These non-native Echinacea flower at a similar time to our native Echinacea angustifolia and we suspected that they could cross-pollinate. To test this, an experimental cross was conducted where pollen from donors of both species E. angustifolia and E. pallida were applied to stigma of receptive Echinacea of both species (so we have four crosses: Ang x Ang, Ang x Pal, Pal x Pal, and Pal x Ang). These crosses produced some viable seed and the progeny were grown in an experimental garden. We monitored the progeny’s survivorship, size, and reproductive effort (once they began flowering in the 5th year). These data will allow us to answer questions about the fitness of hybrid Echinacea compared to non-hybrids.
I made an aster graphical model that I am going to use to test hypotheses about the fitness of hybrid Echinacea. The graphical model contains survivorship (represented as ld or “living during”), whether the plant flowered (Flowering), and a count of the number of heads produced by a flowering plant (HdCt). A noticeable feature of the graphical model is the absence of flowering in 2019, this was because none of the plants in the experiment flowered that year. In the previous year, the first plant flowered and it was the only plant to flower, interestingly it was a Pal x Pal cross.
The goal of this second data exploration was to determine the number of plants living in 2023 in each cross type and their plant status (e.g. basal, flowering, etc).
Table 1: Number of plants of each plant status given cross type in 2023. Interestingly, 0 Ang x Pal individuals flowered that year. Pal x Pal crosses flowered most abundantly.
Additionally, we wanted to know how many plants flowered each year given their cross types.
Table 2: Number of flowering individuals per year given their cross types. Interestingly, Pal x Pal were the earliest to flower and most abundantly flowering. Pal x Ang crosses flowered more than Ang x Pal crosses.
The goal of this initial data exploration was to determine questions and hypotheses that I will be exploring with aster models. To do this it is important to see what groundwork has been laid. Nicholas Goldsmith is the one who laid most of the groundwork on analysis for this project and it can be found here: https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/252544
Initial question: How does pedigree effect reproductive effort (i.e. flowering)?
This is of interest because 61 plants in experiment 7 have flowered since 2018 (this may not be 61 unique flowering plants but instead 61 unique instances of flowering across those years [2018 – 2023]).
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.
A note to future Team Echinacea members: Are you still wearing masks all the time? Are you still 3 years behind on cleaning Echinacea heads or have you caught up a little bit?
Anyway, in the summer of 2020 there were 18 heads of Echinacea pallida that were harvested. 11 of these heads were a part of Anna Meehan’s hybrid compatibility experiment. All of the pallida heads are NOT going through the ACE process; they are in the lab all together nice and neat. These 18 pallida heads will not be a part of hh2020. EXCEPT the hybrid plant head (AP-772) who will stay apart of hh.2020 since we need achene count eventually but for now it will stay here until it is dissected.
The heads are in a box labeled “Anna Meehan’s Hybrid Compatibility experiment & E. pallida heads 2020″ in the glass cabinets right as you enter the ecology lab.
The hybrid compatibility experiment would be a perfect project for a student in the lab for a few weeks. They could asses the compatibility of the hybrid with not only the E. angustifolia but also the E. pallida. The experiment is designed with backcrosses (hybrid to parent) and forward crosses (parent to hybrid don’t know if this is the right word I just made it up). The student would be able to access seed set on the hybrid, E. angustifolia, & E. pallida heads. The sample size is fairly small but this would conclude a good pilot study for further studies of the hybrid compatibilities. We also need achene count of the hybrid plant (AP-227)!
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
Echinacea pallida is a non-native species to the prairie of western Minnesota and E. pallida has the potential to out compete the native E. angustifolia. To learn more about this in 2020, we cross-pollinated E. angustifolia, E. pallida, and a E. angustifolia X E. pallida hybrid plant to assess interspecies compatibility. This experiment investigates the reproductive potential of E. angustifolia and E. pallida hybrids, of which may threaten native E. angustifolia preservation.
Since this was the first year that a hybrid plant flowered it was a great opportunity to investigate this question. On July 6th, 2020, seventy-six total hand crosses were completed to test mating compatibility. Three E. angustifolia and three E. pallida plants from Hegg Lake WMA were selected to serve as maternal plants in the experiment. Each treatment consisted of three crosses with pollen from the plant’s respective species, three crosses with the hybrid pollen, and three crosses with no pollen as a control. E. angustifolia and E. pallida pollen was collected from no less than three plants to reduce risk of self-pollination. Finally, pollen collected from each maternal plant was administered to the hybrid. The hybrid received nine crosses with three different E. angustifolia plants, nine crosses with three different E. Pallida plants, and three styles received no pollen as a control. The order of pollen administration was randomized across a designated row of styles.
Pollinator exclusion bags were used to limit exposure to pollinators. We later collected the heads from the hybrid, maternal E. angustifolia, and maternal E. pallida plants. In the winter, these heads will be x-rayed to assess seed set.
I wanted to make a post detailing my experiment this summer with hybrid Echinacea plants at Hegg Lake. As a student, it was my goal to design, execute, and analyze an experiment with Team Echinacea this summer. Because I’m interested in genetics, I wanted to create something that would connect inheritance with population control among Echinacea. With the help of some seasoned Team Echinacea members (Riley T and Mia S), I was able to construct an experiment that would study the reproduction potential of hybrid Echinacea, crossed between E. angustifolia and E. pallida.
In the history of experimental plot 7, two Echinacea plants have flowered. Most recently, a hybrid Echinacea flowered this spring. This allowed us to cross the hybrid’s pollen with a variety of E. angustifolia and E. pallida in the Hegg Lake area. In order to assess reproduction potential, styles were painted, pollinated, and later observed to look for shriveling. Although styles may shrivel for a variety of reasons, shriveling usually indicates reproduction. In the winter, we will assess the seed-set of these individuals to determine reproductive fitness.
When new species from non-prairie remnants are introduced to new areas, the risk of hybridization among plants of the same genus arises. E. pallida, which has shown to out-compete E. angustifolia in our experimental plots, therefore has the ability to pass on its genes through hybrids. If hybrids are able to reproduce, and continue to pass on E. pallida genes, the risks of genetic swamping increase. Therefore, over time, hybridization could eventually exterminate E. angustifolia from its native prairie.
A picture of me painting bracts for our hybrid crosses. Photo credit to Mia S!
In order to assess reproduction, we hand-crossed a variety of sample pollen with E. angustifolia, E. pallida, and hybrid Echinacea. In this experiment, a shriveled style is a sign of successful reproduction. Because Echinacea plants are not self-compatible, the reasons for a style not to shrivel could vary. Reasons could be that the hybrid was not compatible with this type of Echinacea, or because the specific Echinacea plants were incompatible due to inheritance patterns.
An example of hand-crosses from Shona Sanford-Long, 2012
Our sample size was also effected because only one hybrid Echinacea flowered this summer. In the end, we cross-pollinated our hybrid plant with three E. angustifolia plants, and three E. pallida plants. If more hybrids flower in the future, we will be able to expand our sample size and cross variety. For this reason, we hope to continue this experiment in the following summers if hybrids continue to flower.
Overall, we saw that hybrids were more compatible with E. angustifolia rather than E. pallida. While hybrid reproduction passes on E. pallida genes, a greater chance of reproduction with E. angustifolia keeps native genes (and hopefully, native traits) in the prairie gene pool.
In the future, I will share more updates as we continue to analyze and reassess the data.
Thanks for joining me on this exciting, new experiment!
