Seedling establishment aka sling « The Echinacea Project

This week in pictures

Katherine here.

Most of the Echinacea crew arrived on Sunday. The week has gotten off to a running start. Here are some pictures from our first few days in action:

Data Entry for 2011 Seedling Searches

This afternoon, Amber E. and I (others joined in later) started organizing the data sheets from the seedling searches we have completed so far this season. We are sorting the new maps and other data sheets for each site by focal plant number, and adding the new pages to the end of each site’s notebook. As we organize data sheets for each site, we are also reconciling the maps with the master data sheet for each site.

The data we have recorded on the frame data sheets will need to be entered into a spreadsheet, so that we can use the measurements to generate maps and distance matrices for those focal plants.

slingDataEntryBlank.xls
Here’s an Excel file we can use to do the data entry. For each frame data sheet, 2 people should enter the data. The first person will enter data in the DE_1 worksheet, and the second person will enter data in the DE_2 worksheet. The check columns in DE_1 will then allow us to check for data entry errors. The file should be saved as “slingDataEntry2011Page[page number]”.

I’ll put together a master list with all the frame data sheet page numbers. The frame data sheets will be in the seedling notebooks. People will enter their initials when they have completed data entry for a page number.

Let me know if you have suggestions to make the data entry work better.

The seedling search has begun!

Today we started the seedling search at Steven’s Approach (SAP). The wind was strong and air temperature was chilly. We searched 3 circles; in one of the circles we found 6 seedlings! We drew a map and filled in a matrix, as we have done in previous years. We also tried out the new coordinate frame.
I (Amy) have revised the protocol. Please read it and feel free to suggest ways it can be improved.
Seedling Search Protocol 2011.doc

Fall Field Work

Kate and I have had some beautiful weather for field work (except today–it rained most of the day). Here’s a picture of the roadside site we call East Riley. Notice that our ambitious mower has mowed TWO swaths of the roadside. The mowed area includes most of the circles I am searching to re-find and measure plants we had identified in years past.

We do seedling searches every spring at 14 prairie remnants. We search within 41 cm (or 50 cm for smaller populations) of randomly selected Echinacea plants that flowered the previous summer. Since 2006 we have used these spring searches to find new seedlings (identifiable by the presence of cotyledons). When we find seedlings, we draw circle maps showing the seedling locations with respect to the focal plant, and make measurements to other tagged plants. In 2009 and 2010 we mapped ALL Echinacea plants within the 41/50-cm radius circles. Late in the growing season, we return to the 14 sites and re-find the seedlings and other plants. We update the circle maps, and measure the surviving plants.

Why go to all this trouble? I plan to use the data to estimate the growth rate for these small Echinacea populations. Are the Echinacea producing enough offspring to maintain their populations? That’s the question I hope to answer!

The re-finds are complete at eelr, lih, nessman, nwlf, randt, sap, sgc and spp. I am currently working at eri; still remaining are eth, kj’s, lc, lf and ri. Some of the sites are disappointing. There has been a lot of gopher activity at lih, and most of the Echinacea plants, big and small, are gone. I was only able to find 1 of the 12 seedlings we had previously mapped. Other sites (eri, ri, nessman) are disturbed by frequent roadside mowing and scraping. In spite of that, we were able to find 18 of the 23 previously identified seedlings at nessman. In total (so far), we have found 54/85 seedlings. Some of the survivors were first identified in 2007 (I don’t think I’ve found any 2006 seedlings yet–but there weren’t many to begin with).

I’ll post an update when I finish entering all the data…or the next time I get rained out!

Seedling refind protocol 2010

Here’s the protocol for re-finds in the remnants. Please look it over, and critique!
Protocol for seedling refinds 2010.docx

Seedling searches complete!

Today Josh and I searched the last two circles at Staffanson Prairie (SPP). Our last search centered on this focal plant:

We found 23 seedlings in the circles at SPP, bringing our grand total for this year to 74. In comparison, we found 29 seedlings in 2006, 135 in 2007, 239 in 2008, and 93 in 2009. That’s quite a lot of year-to-year variation!

Seedlings found doing Recruitment

Exciting news! Amy and Hillary found some seedlings at a Hegg Lake plot, the one thats on a hill (the hill with all the phlox on the side) near that blind corner. Anyway, there were nearby flowering plants so its great their reproducing! There were also a couple seedlings found outside the frisbee sized circle area.

here are the pics:

This one is a close up of the shriveled cots (with an achene next to it), can you see it!?!

The seedling finders, working hard!

This was in the morning, getting ready for work:

This is just a prairie lilly (Lilium philadelphicum) that I spotted at Staffenson. First time ever seeing one and I think their beautiful!

Lastly, this is a reminder for me to show Stuart my preliminary data collection sheet:
data table for project.pdf

-Katie

Year-old Echinacea youngster

With the early spring we’ve been having in Minnesota, I was curious about whether the Echinacea plants were sprouting. My husband and I made a day-trip out to Douglas County last Saturday (May 1). I did a quick check of my crossing experiment plot at Hegg Lake. I found some of the toothpicks we used to mark seedlings last summer, along with some of the plants–which are now a year old. I plan to do a complete census in another couple of weeks.

We also stopped by the common garden. Here’s one of the plants–already quite a bit of growth on the first of May.

Amy’s poster

Here’s a poster I presented at the Evolution 2009 symposium at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, September 2-4, 2009. The poster describes my local adaptation experiment, and results of the early summer seedling searches at my three experimental sites.
DykstraPosterEvolution2009UNK.pptx

Seedling re-finds

Here is a draft version of a protocol for seedling re-finds in the prairie remnants. Please read and critique. Protocol for seedling refinds 2009.docx

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