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Hey everyone,
Thanks again for collecting helping with style collection, so far I’ve made four slides and the results are certainly interesting. There is certainly more pollen from 8am to 11am, but it’s going to be hard to tell what pollen is there. So far, I haven’t seen any thistle pollen, which is purplish, or any football shaped pollen, only a Echinacea and/or “-opsis” pollen (Heliopsis or Coriopsis). But then, my current sample size is tiny, so this may change. I have a lot more slides to produce, but so far so good!
FOR NEXT WEEK:
The protocol for style collection next week is a bit different, so please read this and take any notes that you feel are necessary, or ask me any questions you might have.
We will only be collecting styles at the end of the observation period. ONLY COLLECT STYLES ONCE!
Prior to taking the style off the plant, we will be recording style persistence data, to recap:
The form will have five new lines for you to fill out, fr1, fr2, mr1, mr2, and immatures.
Fr1 will be the lower row of unshriveled styles. Count a row if there are more that 3/4 of the styles left.
Fr2 will be the upper row (ie the most recent) row of unshriveled styles.
Mr1 will be the first row of male anthers
Mr2 will be the last row of male anthers (usually there will not be a mr2, so leave this blank)
Immatures is the number of rows or florets left (put an “r” or an “f” to indicate which). Only count florets if there are 11 or less. Only do this if head is at the end of flowering.
One last thing, if there is still a problem with recording the letter field, enter the tag number of the plant in that space and enter the flag letter in the notes (if there is no tag, put a zero). There shouldn’t be a problem, but if there is, just try to capture the information requested in the notes section.
Thanks again for your help and your patience!
-Kate Monster
This may (tentatively) be the official web presence of the pollen library – I am fairly comfortable using wikispaces and the students in my classes are as well. See if it works and provide any feedback you may have.
pollen.wikispaces.com
Enjoy the weekend.
For those who may find it useful soon. The ppt file (which is large) contains the partial identification key for our usage.
If you look closely, the diameters of the main four (Amanda has found) at this time are marked.
More to come next week.Who’s who.ppt
The Protocol for Style collection tomorrow is a bit different, so, everyone needs to get to the farm at 7:15 so we can go over it! But let me give you a quick overview of the main points:
• We will only be collecting styles at the end of the observation period. ONLY COLLECT STYLES ONCE!
• Prior to taking the style off the plant, we will be recording style persistence data:
o The form will have five new lines for you to fill out: fr1, fr2, mr1, mr2, and immatures:
ß Fr1 will be the first row of unshriveled styles. Count a row if there are any left at all.
ß Fr2 will be the last row (ie the most recent) row of unshriveled styles.
ß Mr1 will be the first row of male anthers
ß Mr2 will be the last row of male anthers (usually mr1 and mr2 are the same thing, ie the same row so just fill in the same number twice if this is the case)
ß Immatures is the number of rows with immature florets left, or if the number is less than 11 total (for the whole head), put that number down.
We’ll go over this quickly tomorrow so everyone can get the idea.
• One last thing, if there is still a problem with recording the letter field, enter the tag number of the plant in that space and enter the flag letter in the notes (if there is no tag, put a zero). There shouldn’t be a problem, but if there is, just try to capture the information requested in the notes section.
Thanks again for your help and your patience!
-Kate Monster
RESULTS FOR NAME THAT POLLEN
Slide 1: Heliopsis
Slide 2: Coreopsis
But don’t they all kind of look the same??
Yesterday, between ten people at ten remnants, we collected…
68 pollinators!!
(That’s almost 70!)
A big thanks to all who participated. You had an impressive capture rate and recorded your vials flawlessly.
We will go out to collect again tomorrow morning, each person to a different randomly chosen site (I will post these on the flog later today). Please arrive at Hjelm House at 7:30 to synch visors and pick up supplies so that we can all begin observations at 8:00 AM. I will provide muffins and coffee.
Here are some updates to the pollinator collection protocol– please read them and jot them down (if necessary) on your printed protocol before going out tomorrow morning.
1) As you all noticed, the visor option for “pollinator observed” does not allow you to move on unless you provide a response. There are two methods for selecting either “yes” or “no”. What I would prefer that you do is click on the words “pollinator observed” and click either “yes” or “no” on the resulting screen. The other possible method is to check the box for “yes” or check and un-check the box for “no”, but this should only serve as a backup plan.
2) When entering your stopwatch time, please use a decimal between minutes and seconds. So, if it takes six minutes and twenty seconds for a pollinator to arrive, your entry should read “6.20”.
3) If you observe but do not capture a pollinator, enter the data for the observation, select “no” for “pollinator captured?” and move on to the next plant. Do not stay at that plant to wait for more pollinators.
If you have any other questions or helpful tips for tomorrow’s collection crew please write them in the comments and we will address them before tomorrow morning.
Thanks again, guys– I guess dreams really do come true.
I have returned to take images of pollen as seen below. It will still be a few hours/days/more? to get the images as desired but this is a start. I am predicting some trouble to distinguish between coreopsis, helianthus, and echinacea so be ready to be distinguishing.
Attached are a protocol for pollen slides and the image of echinacea 7.1.09.ech7.1
Protocol for Pollen Slide Prep.doc
Amanda, Kate, and I have combined our protocols and I’ve included a revised equipment list.
Echinacea PONS equip list.doc
Ech combined PollComp Protocols.doc
The following people have agreed (I think) to help with this project on the mornings of July 7th and July 9th, as well as July 21st and July 23rd. If you cannot for some reason, let us know tomorrow.
Stuart, Gretel, Caroline, Amy, Daniel, Greg, Megan, Mimi, Amanda, Kate. Thanks everyone!
Also, after some discussion with Allegra about her pollination and painting needs for this week, I think that we need to either A) give up one person and therefore one remnant to help Allegra or B) have the normal 4 observations for remnants with less than 8 plants instead of doing more observations within the 3 hr pd, and have those people help Allegra when they are done early with pollinator observations/style collection or C) a combination of A&B. Thoughts?
Note: I have included the protocol in with pollinator observations and style collections because we are using the same plants for all 3. However, 3 people can do this over the course of 3 pm’s. Those who are helping so far are: Kate, Allegra (when not doing pm pollinations)
Friday we practiced catching insects for a half hour but much more practice is needed and those who were not there on friday need to be trained. I think a group training/practicing session before lift-off is imperative.
Today Daniel and Allegra helped me assess the flowering plants situation at some of the remnants we plan on using. We flagged flowering plants at: Riley (5),YOH (3), NRRX (4), LC (8), Steven’s appch (3). Some of these sites had plants that seemed likely to flower by Tuesday so we flagged those plants as well.We randomly selected 8 plants for LC since there were 17 that were either flowering or seemed very likely to flower by Tuesday. There was only 1 plant flowering at NWLF so that site has been eliminated. We also noted co-flowering species for each remnant. Tomorrow we need to finish flagging and randomly selecting plants at the 5 other remnants.
Stay tuned for July 4th picnic and kick-ass sandcastle pictures!
Stuart, here are the estimates of people hours I will need for my project. Also, a schedule of times when I would need helpers during this week. Who wants to trade some hours?
Monday I would ideally like to paint and count styles for up to 80 treatments which I estimate will take 9-10 people hours (depending on how many need to be trained). I would like to do it after phenology or at least do the style persistence before lunch, painting can happen later. Wednesday and Thursday also follow the same schedule.
But… this would mean a big pollination day on Tuesday, when everyone is out in the remnants. Pollination takes about the same amount of time. So Mimi and I have come up with several possible solutions (or a combination):
– If Ruth will be here Tues. morning she could help collecting insects and someone else could help pollinate
– Cut the remnants down to 9 instead of 10
– Have some people in smaller remnants leave a little earlier than 11am, or have vehicles and be able to book it back at 11 to help pollinate from 11-12
– Cut down the treatments painted on Monday, however I don’t want to cut down too much, since some of my plants have been flowering since Thursday or Friday and I don’t want to wait too long
– Skip painting on Monday, paint Tuesday and Thursday, and pollinate Wed. and Friday when we have more people to spare
– I would also like help collecting pollen on Tues. and Wed. but I may be able to do this myself if needed.
– lastly, I need one person to help me do afternoon pollination on Tuesday and Thursday between 2-4pm
Sorry for throwing this into the mix so late in the game folks. I guess it was just hard to know how many hours and people I would need before we did a full day of painting and pollinating.
-Allegra
Your choices are: Heliopsis, Coreopsis, and Echinacea. (hint: there is only one species of pollen in each photo.)
Put your guesses in the comments, and we’ll reveal the answers on America’s birthday! Go ahead, put some money on it.
-Daniel and Amanda
EDIT– We will not be announcing the results until there are at least three guesses in the comments!! Get guessin, folks. And happy July 4th!
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