We made a lot of progress this week. First, the volunteers finished the first round of counting for one of the larger experimental plots. There are still two more rounds of counting to finish, but we’re mostly there.

Suzanne started taking inventory of the heads we harvested this year. It didn’t take her long to get through everything, considering flowering was so low this year. Out of about 500 heads, there was only one that was mislabeled. There were a few missing, but they are on their way back from Minnesota.

I’ve been busy trying to identify all the ant specimens we have pinned. Right now it looks like we have two species of Lasius, five species of Formica, and one species each in several other genera. There are also multiple species within the genus Myrmica, but I haven’t identified them yet. Apparently that genus is particularly difficult to identify.

Now that the summer field season has come to an end, it is time to focus on what’s going on in the lab at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. I am taking over for Josh as lab manager and have spent most of the week learning my way around the lab.

Since I arrived, the two major tasks for the volunteers have been counting, randomizing, and weighing achenes from heads collected in 2011.

Here is Aldo, using the computer to count achenes from a scanned image:

Once we have a count of achenes for each head, we select a random sample for weighing. Here is Char, randomizing achenes based on a numbered grid:

As for the 2012 harvest, we brought a little over 500 heads from the main experimental plot. This is much less than the 2890 heads collected last year. Our haul from this year also includes heads from Kelly’s phenology study, heads from Shona’s hybridization experiment, and a sizable collection of ants from prairie remnants. We have plenty of work in store for the coming months.