In the fall of 2018, the Echinacea Project scientists came to West Central Area Schools (WCA) and mapped out twelve plots to transplant E. angustifolia into the following summer. The WCA Environmental Learning Center has 35 acres of restored prairie, making it a perfect place to plant experimental plot 10. During the summer of 2019, Team Echinacea planted over 1400 E. angustifolia seedlings into the 12 subplots. Three plantings were performed: the first was a planting organized by Michael and had offspring from exPt1, the second consisted of plants from Amy W’s gene flow experiment, and the third planting had offspring from the Big Event. All plants originate from Grant or Douglas County, MN. To test how different fire regimes affect fitness in Echinacea, folks from West Central Area will apply a fall burn treatment to four plots, a spring burn treatment to four other plots, and the remaining four plots will not be burned.
The team after planting the original cohort of Echinacea in experimental plot 10. It was a long day!
During science classes with John VanKempen, WCA high school students will assess the effects of differential burning regimes on the fitness of E. angustifolia. For the first time this fall, juniors in VanKempen’s classes used data they collected on plants to answer their own scientific inquiries. Students developed hypotheses, then measured various morphological traits on surviving Echinacea in the 12 plots. The students used the data they collected to create graphs based on their data. VanKempen plans to continually integrate these Echinacea experimental plots into his classroom lessons and hopes other teachers at WCA will utilize the experimental plots for student science projects.
Start
year: 2018
Location: West Central Area High School’s Environmental Learning Center, Barrett, MN.
Data collected: Planting and survival data for seedlings planted in summer 2019. GPS points taken for plots. Planting data is available in the Echinacea Project ~Dropbox/CGData/195_plant/. Contact John VanKempen for survival data taken by his students. GPS points are available here: ~Dropbox\geospatialDataBackup2019\planting2019\nailStakeWCA.csv
Products: High School Posters. Contact John
VanKempen for info.
Echinacea angustifolia is the only species of Echinacea native to Minnesota, but it is not the only Echinacea species that currently inhabits MN. In the Echinacea Project study area, there are actually three different Echinacea species: E. angustifolia, E. pallida, and E. purpurea. Both non-native species were introduced in restorations from seed that was not locally sourced. We know that non-natives hybridize with our native Echinacea, and we fear that introgression with hybrids may result in genetic swamping of E. angustifolia. We want to learn as much as we can about similarities and differences between Echinacea species in MN so we can assess the threat level of non-native Echinacea in Solem Township and take the proper steps to alleviate the potential threat.
There have been reports that ploidy level varies among Echinacea species (McGregor 1968; McKeown 1999). Specifically, E. pallida is reportedly tetraploid (4n) throughout most of its range, while E. angustifolia and E. purpurea are diploid (2n). There are also reports of E. angustifolia in Oklahoma and Texas being tetraploid (this is a different variety of E. angustifolia from the one we study). Nonetheless, we are interested in the ploidy of Echinacea in MN because it affects whether hybrids are able to reproduce. If a diploid mates with a tetraploid, it produces triploid (3n) offspring; triploids are generally not fertile. Thus, ploidy of non-natives greatly affects the ability of non-native Echinacea to genetically swamp E. angustifolia by creating fertile hybrids.
E. pallida head – the flowering heads are distinguishable by pollen color and ray floret color/length.
E. angustifolia head
To investigate ploidy differences between Echinacea species in Minnesota, we will collect and dry tissue from the three different Echinacea species and their hybrids and assess relative genome size using a flow cytometer at the Chicago Botanic Garden. We will also assess relative genome size in seedlings grown from seeds sourced from various latitudes in our species’ ranges to see if the individual species vary in ploidy level throughout their range.
This is the flow cytometer – the machine used to assess relative genome size at the CBG.
On 21 Dec 2019 demap was updated to accept 2019 demography and survey records. In 2019 we took 4031 visor records in demo and 1413 GPS points in surv. The updated infiles are located in ~Dropbox\demapSupplements\demapInputFiles. Demo and surv have not yet been reconciled.
2019 should be the last year we use a GRS-1 machine, as Chekov is set to be decommissioned this spring. Thanks, Chekov! He was truly a key player while Darwin was in surgery for his busted receiver.
Each year, we assess flowering phenology in experimental plots to determine mating potential for individual plants and see how a number of factors may affect flowering phenology. Some of the factors we have investigated in the past include heritability, burning, and climate.
2019 was truly a special year for Echinacea flowering phenology in experimental plots. There were flowering plants in four – yes FOUR – experimental plots. We had the usual flowering plants in exPt1 and exPt2 at Hegg Lake. We also had a flowering plant in exPt8 (qgen2 and qgen3) and exPt9 at Hegg Lake. Unfortunately, we did not see the flowering plant with an E. pallida dam at exPt9 until late in the season, so we did not take phenology in exPt9.
This Echinacea head is mid-flowering. It has more than 2 rows shedding pollen and more than 11 immature florets.
This year, we visited the three other plots and followed the usual Echinacea phenology protocol. We recorded first flowering day and subsequently recorded dates of “mid” and “late” flowering. Finally, we recorded the final flowering date of each plant.
In addition to the single flowering plants in exPt8 and exPt9, exPt1 had 63 flowering heads we tracked for phenology and exPt2 had a whopping 1207! The first flowering head in exPt1 started on July 3rd, while the first head in exPt2 started flowering on July 1st. The last day of flowering in exPt1 and exPt2 was August 21st. What a long summer of taking phenology data!
Data/
materials collected:phenology data (start date, mid flowering, end date,
etc…), harvested heads for the ACE protocol. All phenology data can be found in
the cgData repository in the subfolder p1p2Phenology.
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. This year, we decapitated
all flowering Echinacea pallida to
avoid interspecific pollination with the local Echinacea angustifolia. We fear that Echinacea hybrids may be infertile, so we want to avoid the
establishment of as many hybrids as possible.
This year, a team slogged through the Hegg Lake restoration to find flowering Echinacea pallida. We recorded the number of heads on each plant, the number of rosettes (some plants were absolutely massive), shot gps points at all plants, and then chopped the flowering heads off! We visited the restoration and cut E. pallida heads off on July 8th, 9th and 10th of 2019. We revisited plants and shot gps points for them on July 11th, July 12th, and August 1st.
You can distinguish E. pallida and angustifolia heads by pollen color; E. angustifolia has yellow pollen, but E. pallida has white pollen (above).
Overall, we found and shot points
for 97 flowering E. pallida. On
average, each plant produced 2.5 flowering heads. That’s way more than an
average E.angustifolia!The average
rosette count was 5.4, another big number! The largest plant had 23 rosettes.
We collected tissue samples of E. angustifolia, E. pallida, and known hybrids so Elif can assess ploidy at the Chicago Botanic Garden using the flow cytometer.
Start year: 2011
Location: Hegg Lake
Wildlife Management Area Restoration
Data collected: Demography data, head counts, rosette counts, gps points shot for each E. pallida. Cut Echinacea pallida heads, tissue samples for ploidy analysis. Find demo and phenology visor records in the aiisummer2019 repository. Phenology visor records were taken when we cut heads and demography records were taken when we shot GPS points. GPS points can be found in Demap.
In summer 2019 Team Echinacea continued the aphid addition
and exclusion experiment begun in 2011 by Katherine Muller. The original
experiment included 100 plants selected from experimental plot one to have
aphids added and excluded through multiple years. The intention was to assess
the impact of specialist herbivore Aphis echinaceae on Echinacea fitness.
This year Erin and Shea managed the project. They located 15 living addition plants and 22 exclusion plants. The experiment was conducted from July 8th to August 16th. Erin and Shea performed addition and exclusion twice a week for a total of 10 events, with the final visit consisting only of observation. The number of aphids applied to each plant depended on how many could be obtained and varied between five and 10. They recorded the number of aphids present in classes of 0, 1, 2-10, 11-80 and 80<. They also recorded the precise number of aphids added. Erin and Shea found that natural hair paintbrushes were more effective than synthetic and trimmed the brushes down so fewer than half the hairs remained.
Aphids were gently pushed into petri dishes using paintbrushes
Data collected: Scanned
datasheets are located at ~Dropbox\teamEchinacea2019\aphidAddEx2019\aphidAdEx2019Datasheets.pdf.
The paper sheets are located in the CBG common area filing cabinets in a
manilia folder labeled “Aphid ad/ex 2019,” located next to the 2018 aphid
folder.
Products:
Andy Hoyt’s poster presented at the Fall 2018 Research Symposium at Carleton College.
2016 paper by Katherine Muller and Stuart on aphids and foliar herbivory damage on Echinacea
2015 paper by Ruth Shaw and Stuart on fitness and demographic consequences of aphid loads
You can read more about the aphid addition and exclusion experiment, as well as links to prior flog entries mentioning the experiment, on the background page for this experiment.
Three weeks have gone by fast! It’s pretty incredible how much we were able to fit into such a short time span.
Our first week was spent getting introduced to the center and the work happening here. We met lots of people as well as lots of lab equipment! We learned how data collection happens for the study of Echinacea, by completing a large set of Echinacea achene counting using new study protocols. This study will hopefully yield interesting insights into how Echinacea plants develop and utilize resources. We also learned how XRays are used and processed (RIP to the XRay machine, gone but not forgot), and spent some time helping organize Echiachea heads for later use.
Our second week, we continued the organization and processing of Echinacea data but also began to develop our own research inquires, based on our own personal interests and the data we had to work with. We all chose very different focuses, mine being a focus on long-term analysis of pollinator diversity and abundance measures, or “How are bee populations changing over time in the Echinacea fields?”
Bee samples that provided me with data for my work
Our third week, we focused in on our projects. Locating and processing my pollinator data took a good deal of time, so I spent a good chunk of the week processing this data as well as learning R, a widely applicable skill for someone interested in science. While I still have a lot of questions and things I’d like to explore further, I am very happy with what I was able to accomplish given the time constraints. Please see my attached presentation below for more detail and major takeaways!
I would like to give a huge thank you to Stuart, Erin, and Riley, who made this entire experience possible. They helped us pretty much every step of the way, whether it was practicing our ‘ABTs’s, scanning seeds, or learning R from the ground up. I am very happy to have had such a productive and fulfilling winter break and look forward to more breaks, and more work like it.
I have very much enjoyed my time here, and after 3 weeks of work am looking forward to the holidays with family, and sleeping in past 6am!
In 2019 100 plants were selected for a flowering induction experiment using liquid smoke at site ALF. They were shot with GPS Darwin. Many of these plants lie beyond boundary fence and are not included in demo/surv. However, records containing a “loc” (numbered 1-100) and the number of heads per plant were taken on visors with the demo form and added to the 2019 demo data. The shot points were not added to surv. The experiment was not executed in 2019.
The demo records were added to aiisummer2019 in file ~aiisummer2019\demo\20190726demo.txt.
Job SMOKE_PLANTS_20190726_DARW contains 100 points shot of plants for the experiment. The job is backed up in three locations:
In 2019 Jennifer Ison tracked and sampled ground nesting bees in Exp. Plot 2 with Miyauna Incarnato, Avery Pearson and Ren Johnson from the College of Wooster. Bees were captured, refrigerated, fluorescent dyed, released and tracked to their nests. Several bee nests were located and shot with GPS Darwin. One was excavated and brought back to Wooster for study.
Job BEENESTS_20190730_DARW contains 13 points shot of nests and their surrounding plants. The job is backed up in three locations:
This summer Shea and John continued our yellow pan trap project to sample the pollinator community found along roads in our study area in Minnesota. Today volunteer Mike Humphrey pinned the last bee from this summer’s collection!
Mike with the collection; next he’ll be consolidating these with Shea’s pinning from this summer to be sent off for ID at the University of Minnesota!
Mike received a surprise on his last day of the year; volunteer Char found a desiccated bee in one of the Echinacea heads she was cleaning! Mike reports it’s different from anything else we have in the collection this year, so a seriously cool find.
A majority of the bees in our 2019 collection are unremarkable Lasioglossums that we call “small black bees,” but we also get remarkably shiny blue and green bees in our traps!
Thanks for all your hard work Mike, and we’ll see you next year!
