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With over 15 years of data, the study of Echinacea demography is among the Echinacea Project’s longest running research projects. During demography, Team Echinacea maps and collects basic demographic information about plants within 30 prairie remnants. In 2014 we collected demographic information for over 500 individual plants including 179 flowering plants at our largest site, Staffanson Prairie Preserve, alone. Across the other 29 sites, we found 897 flowering plants and visited a total of 1226 plants. For each plant visited, we recorded whether the plant was alive, whether the plant was flowering, and how many flowering heads it produced. With this extensive dataset, we hope to explore inter-annual flowering patterns, assess longitudinal plant fitness, and monitor numerical population dynamics in remnant populations of Echinacea.
Read previous posts about this experiment.
Start year: 1995
Location: 30 remnants prairies
Products: Stuart, Jared, and Gretel are working to clean, organize, and integrate demography, survey, and phenology data (project “demap”). Also see the demography protocol.
Overlaps with: fire and flowering at SPP
To examine the role flowering phenology plays in the reproduction of Echinacea angustifolia, Jennifer Ison planted experimental plot 2 (P2) in 2006 with 3961 individuals selected for extreme (early or late) flowering phenology. In 2014, we measured traits for all 2123 living plants and monitored the daily phenology of 247 flowering heads. Echinacea flowering began on July 2 in P2 and continued through August 24. Using the phenological and trait data collected this summer, we will explore how flowering phenology influences reproductive fitness and estimate the heritability of flowering time in Echinacea angustifolia.
Read previous posts about this experiment.
Start year: 2006
Location: experimental plot 2 (Hegg Lake WMA)
Overlaps with: pollinator efficiency
In 2014, Cam Shorb continued an experiment designed to assess the effects of aphid herbivory on Echinacea angustifolia survival and fitness. The plants are located in experimental plot P1. Cam removed aphids from the 44 plants in the exclusion treatment and added over 220 aphids to the 43 plants in the addition treatment.
Read previous posts about this experiment.
Start year: 2011
Location: P1
Products: Fitness measurements were collected during our annual assessment of fitness in P1. A list of focal plants and addition/exclusion datasheets are located in Cam Shorb’s Dropbox folder.
Overlaps with: Overlaps with: Phenology and fitness in P1
Greetings from Chicago Botanic Garden! A new year is upon us and it is time to recap a busy 2014 summer. Over the next several weeks, we will be posting flog updates describing research projects from the summer and the status of the Echinacea Project’s long-term experiments. Stay tuned!
Click here to Browse all of the updates!
Dwight and Stuart broadcast native prairie seed in experimental plots p1 & p8 on Friday. At 34 °F (1°C) it was the warmest day in a month. It was also very windy –great for spreading seed! We broadcast Bouteloua curtipedula, Schizachyrium scoparium, Galium boreale, and Phlox pilosa directly on the snow. There wasn’t much snow and it was melting. We broadcast Lathyrus venosus in p1. We stored about half of each species, except L. venosus, in the Hjelm house to broadcast in the spring. (Hedging our bets.)
This project investigates the role of three fundamental constraints on mate availability – temporal asynchrony, spatial isolation, and reproductive incompatibility – in remnant Echinacea angustifolia populations. During the summer of 2014, we conducted two studies related to The Mating Scene project. In the first study, we mapped 991 Echinacea plants and monitored the phenology of 1360 flowering heads across 31 remnants to quantify spatial isolation and flowering asynchrony. At the end of the season, we harvested 193 flowering heads from 25 remnants to assess seed set. In the second study, we performed 364 pollen crosses to characterize patterns of reproductive incompatibility within 10 remnants. With the data collected in 2014 and subsequent years, we aim to elucidate how the interactions between temporal asynchrony, spatial isolation, and reproductive incompatibility influence reproductive fitness in fragmented prairie remnants.
|
site |
# of flowering plants |
# of flowering heads |
# of crosses |
# of heads harvested |
| 1 |
aa |
60 |
83 |
36 |
5 |
| 2 |
alf |
63 |
78 |
|
6 |
| 3 |
btg |
3 |
3 |
|
2 |
| 4 |
dog |
1 |
2 |
|
|
| 5 |
eelr |
33 |
17 |
28 |
5 |
| 6 |
eri |
38 |
54 |
|
5 |
| 7 |
eth |
9 |
46 |
|
5 |
| 8 |
gc |
6 |
6 |
|
3 |
| 9 |
kj |
7 |
8 |
|
5 |
| 10 |
lce |
90 |
70 |
24 |
5 |
| 11 |
lcw |
51 |
95 |
24 |
5 |
| 12 |
lfe |
64 |
103 |
24 |
5 |
| 13 |
lfw |
89 |
57 |
24 |
6 |
| 14 |
ngc |
8 |
5 |
|
|
| 15 |
nnwlf |
2 |
13 |
|
5 |
| 16 |
nrrx |
20 |
25 |
|
5 |
| 17 |
nwlf |
13 |
16 |
|
5 |
| 18 |
on27 |
92 |
96 |
42 |
5 |
| 19 |
ri |
82 |
112 |
44 |
5 |
| 20 |
rrx |
43 |
47 |
33 |
5 |
| 21 |
rrxdc |
3 |
3 |
|
2 |
| 22 |
sap |
29 |
13 |
|
5 |
| 23 |
sgc |
8 |
243 |
|
5 |
| 24 |
SppE |
92 |
81 |
41 |
42 |
| 25 |
SppW |
51 |
38 |
44 |
42 |
| 26 |
th |
8 |
9 |
|
5 |
| 27 |
tower |
7 |
11 |
|
5 |
| 28 |
waa |
4 |
8 |
|
|
| 29 |
wood |
4 |
4 |
|
|
| 30 |
yohE |
4 |
5 |
|
|
| 31 |
yohW |
7 |
9 |
|
|
Start year: 2014
Location: Phenology in 31 total remnants, compatibility in 10 remnants
Products: The phenology and compatibility datasets need to be made readyR. The harvested flowering heads are being processed at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
Overlaps with: phenology in six remnants, fire and flowering at SPP
Description: The Echinacea Project’s recruitment experiment examines the germination and survival of Echinacea angustifolia seedlings in oldfields and restored grasslands under different fire regimes. In 2014, Team Echinacea searched for and measured Echinacea plants in 60 study plots spread across 10 experimental blocks. After data collection was complete, we mapped all newly flowering plants. The goal of this study is to identify the environmental factors that influence the recruitment of seedlings and the long-term fitness of Echinacea plants.
Start year: 2001
Location: 10 experimental blocks located in oldfields and restored grasslands
Products: Raw data taken on paper were entered into database and verified. Flowering plants with new tags were mapped and the spatial data is located in the 2014 SURV files. Flowering plants with old tags were not mapped in 2014.
Description: During the summer of 2014, Will Reed designed and executed an experiment to measure the efficacy of various pollen storage methods including storing pollen at room temperature, in refrigeration, and freeze-drying pollen. Between July 14 and August 8, he collected pollen from 15 different plants and performed a total of 186 hand pollinations on 50 plants. These results will improve pollen storage practices and expand the capability to cross plants that flower asynchronously or potentially in different years.
Start year: 2014
Location: P1
Products: A dataset and detailed methods are located in Will Reed’s Dropbox folder. Dataset needs to be made readyR.
We harvested the heads Will used as pollen recipients. He could remove the achenes to see if his crosses produced viable seeds.
Experimental plot 1 (P1) encompasses 11 different experiments originally planted with a total of 10673 Echinacea individuals. These experiments include long-term studies designed to compare the fitness of Echinacea from different remnant populations (“EA from remnants in P1”), examine the effects of inbreeding on plant fitness (“INB” and “INB2”), and explore other genetic properties of Echinacea such as trait heritability (“qGen”). In 2014, Team Echinacea measured plant traits for the 5409 Echinacea plants that remain alive and followed the daily phenology of 567 flowering heads. Echinacea began producing florets on July 1 and continued flowering in P1 until August 24. The data collected in 2014 will allow us to estimate the heritability of various traits and assess the lifetime fitness of plants from the numerous experiments.
|
Experiment |
Year planted |
# alive |
# flowering |
# planted |
| 1 |
1996 |
1996 |
314 |
115 |
650 |
| 2 |
1997 |
1997 |
270 |
57 |
600 |
| 3 |
1998 |
1998 |
32 |
3 |
375 |
| 4 |
1999 |
1999 |
542 |
106 |
888 |
| 5 |
1999S |
1999 |
297 |
37 |
418 |
| 6 |
SPP |
2001 |
318 |
14 |
797 |
| 7 |
Inbreeding |
2001 |
221 |
15 |
557 |
| 8 |
2001 |
2001 |
170 |
11 |
350 |
| 9 |
Monica 2003 |
2003 |
28 |
3 |
100 |
| 10 |
qGen |
2003 |
2501 |
122 |
4468 |
| 11 |
INB2 |
2006 |
716 |
41 |
1470 |
Start year: 1996
Location: experimental plot 1
Products:
Overlaps with: aphid addition exclusion, Pamela’s functional traits, pollen longevity, pollen addition exclusion
Davis Blasini was awarded the best undergraduate student poster in 2014 by the Ecology Section of the Botanical Society of America: “Introduction of Echinacea pallida in the Prairies of Western Minnesota and its Possible Effects on Native Echinacea angustifolia” Co-author: Stuart Wagenius.
Congratulations, Davis!
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