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It was a good day around Andes Tower Hill and the study sites. I think one of the top experiences was when Colin assembled the shower caddy the kind folks from the Andes gave to us and I am guessing that it will vastly improve our showering experience. We also got wireless after some skillful negoitiating by Andy. Working was good today, although it appeared that Echinacea was avoiding our study plots today and we only found two plants on one entire side of the whole plot and also found very few seedlings when doing the seedling counts. There were plenty of seedlings at the other group’s sites however. Once back at Andes, Jameson broke ground on his garden and proceeded to work the dirt into something that would be palatable to his plants. We debated tilling the bunny hill and turning it into a large garden, but then decided it was too much work. I chased butterflies around the condos, and Jameson promptly laughed at me when I took a spill in my quest to capture the flitting, defenseless insects. Six of us went looking for some poor, orphaned furry creatures, namely baby raccoons, that Amy had found, but we were unable to locate them and instead picked up roadkill dragonflies. It wasn’t quite the excitement we were looking for, but it was still good. Jameson’s tick count for today was 5 and currently I do not have the expertise to comment on whether this is above or below his average.
Andy’s problems for the summer:
1. How to transfer large (> 2.0 Gb) of video from the cameras to the hard drives. Right now, it is taking 70 minutes per 2.0 Gb, which is really too long. I am hoping that if I can switch to Josh’s USB 2.0 computer the transfer rate will be much higher. This is probably the biggest problem I need to solve this summer, but there is not much time!
Breaking News!: I just used the USB 2.0 on Josh’s laptop, and the transfer speed is about 30 times faster – yahoooo! Now, I just have to figure out how to keep track of all the videos and how to switch them in the common garden without getting totally confused.
2. Deciding which variables to measure for the path analyses. Some we have thought of so far: population identity, inbreeding status, number of leaves, number of flowering heads, # of pollinators visiting per unit time, style persistence, distance to nearest flowering neighbor, distance from edge in the common garden. The final variables of interest would be # seeds produced and perhaps pollen viability.
3. I need to figure out how to test the viability of Echinacea pollen.
4. How to measure FA in the plants. Leaves and inflorescences should be measured in some manner. The disk itself could be measured for radial symmetry, too. On the inflorescences, the petals themselves can be measured, as well as petals on opposite sides of the head, or across the entire head, as it should be radially symmetric.
Some wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) webworm damage. Wild parsnip is an exotic weed found throughout the midwest. It’s chemical ecology has been well studied by May Berenbaum and Art Zangerl at U of Illinois.
Well, until I figure out why putting images in directly won’t work properly for me, I’ll just link them. Click to see the picture. Also, Ian keeps putting stuff in his kill jars. He’s shuffling insects from this mortal coil.
Rosa arkansana – Pasture rose
Lilium philadelphicum – Prairie lily
some kind of Bluet – a damselfly
Whilst strolling around Andes Tower- being eaten alive by mosquitoes- I found myself well beyond familiar territory. The black-diamond slope “Warmgear” had betrayed my trust and led me to a farm field much further south than I had expected. In the treck through the soybeans, I saw 2 white tailed deer in the distance. Distracted by their graceful loping, I was startled by an explosion of feathers from a cluster of brush nearby. The most tremendously obese turkey in the history of people was flapping frantically to remain airborne. As it struggled to move away from me I began to think that I could run faster than it could fly. As I continued back to the condos, I started to wonder if it would have been smarter to have attacked the turkey rather than simply watch it fly to safety in the woods nearby. Had I punched it in the head, as I suggested aloud to Jameson and Andy later, it may have helped me meet my $13 per week food budget. I suppose you live and learn.
Colin
19 June 2007
Andy McCall reporting here. I drove from OH to Minnesota last Friday. It was a trying commute for a number of reasons. After preparing for the summer and trying to rid myself of a strange contagion I may have contracted in Costa Rica last month I took off from Granville, OH to Chicago, where I was to meet Stuart.
All was well until I hit the hellish highway snag that is Chicagoland. I was not expecting the horrors that I encountered. I WAS however, prepared for tolls on US 90, bringing about ten dollars in change. The first toll came to a grand total of 15 cents. I didn’t know that anything, even candy, cost fifteen cents anymore. I used to buy subsidized milk in elementary school for that amount. The next toll was 50 cents – OK, the next toll was 100 meters later and was $2.50. I submit this question to you, dear reader, “What is up with that?��? Why wasn’t it $3.00 in the first place? – I didn’t even see a darn exit in between the tolls.
OK, enough about tolls. I called Stuart telling him of the construction on I-90, suggesting that I was 40 minutes away. Three hours later I arrived in Highland Park, right across the street from the Chicago Botanic Garden. We stayed for about 30 minutes, chatting through the din of the cicadas that had emerged en masse in the Chicago area. Stuart drove my car and we talked of many things, as we had 6hrs in the car.
After arriving in MN, I went down to Northfield for my 10th College Reunion. It was grand, and saw many a familiar face. I also got to visit Carleton’s own prairie restoration, where I had worked years before under the tutelage of Dr. Mark McKone. I took several pictures of prairie plants and their associated insects. From the prairie you can even see Carleton’s giant windmill. St. Olaf has copied us and now has a big one right as you enter Northfield on Hwy 19. I picked up Colin Venner at the MSP airport and then we were on our way!
Heliopsis 
Amorpha canescens
Heliopsis helianthoides – Sunflower
Phlox pilosa – Prairie Phlox
Echinacea angustifolia – narrow-leaved purple coneflower (before flowering)
This Echinacea (#11432) got creamed by a road grating truck. It had at least two heads and more than forty-five basal leaves. Being a taproot, it’ll likely grow back at some point, but if cars keep driving over it, who knows.
It was raining first thing in the morning so we organized visors, the Trimble GeoXH, fanny packs, radios, & other supplies. We have so many batteries of so many different types!
After the rain stopped we visited two remnants: BTG, one of the smallest, and the Staffanson Prairie Preserve, our largest. Ray florets on some Echinacea plants were sticking up. That’s early!
Here’s a list of some of the showy flowering plants we saw at Staffanson:
Heliopsis helianthoides
Galium boreale
Phlox pilosa
Rosa arkansana
Calylophus serrulatus
Delphinium virescens
Coreopsis palmata
Zigadenas elegans
Thalictrum dasycarpum
Asclepias ovalifolia
It was quite windy, so we didn’t see many pollinators. I remember one Auglochlorella striata and a few large syrphid flies.
After lunch we searched for plants in one recruitment plot (#1 Eng Lake). The winds picked up to 25-30 mph with gusts around 45 mph (43 mph was recorded at the Alex airport).
Back at the house we dealt with paperwork and practiced using the visors.
I am looking forward to a good summer!
Folks arrived Sunday afternoon & evening. They moved into the condos at Andes Tower Hill. It seems like the housing will be good, but they have only 8 beds–we’ll need more. Also the wireless wasn’t working.
Here’s a photo of everyone who had arrived by 6 pm.
 L to R: Amy, Ian, Andy, Colin, Stuart, Rachel & Julie (Jameson & Josh were on their way.)
I gave them directions to Pete’s County Market for food shopping. They should be settling in–by now, they should be asleep.
I am not asleep. I just moved furniture around so I could sit down at a computer next to the new dsl modem. I figured out how to connect the computer and here I am.
Here’s the recap on the trip from Illinois: Andy picked me up after an arduous drive through Chicago. We made it to my folk’s house by 11:30 pm. Saturday morning at 8 we picked up equipment from Ruth at the U of MN: computer, printer, survey station accessories (the station itself is in the shop), keys, dissecting scope, etc. Then I went to Metal detectors of Minneapolis at 38th & Cedar and bought a metal detector. I drove to my cousin Kory’s graduation party in St. Cloud with my mom and from there we drove to the farm.
We’ll start on Monday morning at 8:30. It might rain.
I’m not in the field yet, so this entry might be premature for the Echinacea Field Log. But I am excited for the summer to begin, so here goes…
This is the web blog for the Echinacea Project for the summer field season of 2007. This summer a lot of folks will be working on many great field projects that further scientific knowledge about ecology and evolution of native prairie plants in fragmented habitat. Our focal species is the narrow-leaved purple coneflower, Echinacea angustifolia. Most folks will arrive at the field site in western Minnesota this Sunday. I just set up this blog today. Kudos to the UMN library for making this blogging software available.
We are going to maintain this blog for the summer field season. I hope the blog will serve several purposes. First, we can keep track of the things we do so that we can remember what we did. I’d like to remember all the projects that we work on during the summer, but usually there are so many things going on I can’t keep track. In my experience, on any given day in the field, I can’t remember whether we did phenology observations the day before or two days before. This is something we need to keep track of because our protocol is to do phenology observation every other day. I hope this blog will help. Second, we can maintain open communication about data-taking protocols. When many people are taking data, e.g. measuring leaves on a plant, it is important that everyone measures in the same way. How much do you straighten a leaf? Do you start measuring at the ground or the base of the leaf? Do you hold the ruler straight up or the direction the leaf leans, etc. If we write down our protocols in a medium that allows easy editing and discussion, then it might help us all measure the same way. Third, we’d like friends and family to know what we are doing. So this web blog will enable folks to know what we are doing. I hope we can figure out how to share images easily.
Who is “we?” If all goes well, everyone working on the Echinacea project will be able to contribute to the Echinacea Field Log web log. (Should we call this a flog?) Folks are coming from many places to work on the project this summer. Students are coming from Western Washington University, Carleton College, Dennison University, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the U of MN. Andy is a professor at Dennison U and is driving to Chicago tomorrow to pick me up. I’m at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois. There’ll time for more intros later. I need to pack up equipment & supplies.
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L to R: Amy, Ian, Andy, Colin, Stuart, Rachel & Julie (Jameson & Josh were on their way.)
