Hello everyone,
I’m glad you are all going to visit, neighbors. The echinacea is about to flower in full force, as are the leadplant (not today but soon), coreopsis in abundance, some goldenrod, purple prairie clover, dalea. Additionally galium, phlox, alumroot, ground cherries and lilies are blooming.
There will be many pollinator neighbors out next week trying to make a speedy delivery. If the weather is nice Mon AM, why don’t you join us, neighbor?
See you all Mon.!
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As promised, you can read the protocol I’ve developed for collecting pollen styles from Echinacea plants. This protocol will be joined with Mimi and Amanda’s to form one complete and very awesome experiment. You can find my protocol here: Input welcome! -Kate Cirsium altissimum I generated a list of 40 random UTM coordinates for SPP and posted them here: sppRandCoords.csv. Here’s the R code I used to generate random coordinates…
df <- data.frame(order= 1:40,
E= round(runif(40, 286100, 286900),2),
N= round(runif(40, 5077080, 5077500),2))
write.csv(df, file= "sppRandCoords.csv", row.names= FALSE)
I gleaned the rough SPP corner coordinates from Google Earth--UTM 15T: Here's a snippet of R code to make a plot of the points and to make a file with latitudes & longitudes..
df <- read.csv(
"https://echinaceaproject.org/wp-content/uploads/sppRandCoords.csv")
plot(df$E, df$N, asp = 1, type = "n")
text(df$E, df$N, labels= df$order)
require(PBSmapping)
names(df) <- c("EID", "X", "Y")
df <- as.EventData(df)
attr(df, "projection") <- "UTM"
attr(df, "zone") <- 15
fred <- convUL(df, km=FALSE)
write.csv(fred, file= "sppRandLL.csv", row.names= FALSE)
Here's a link to those 40 random points in a lat long projection sppRandLL.csv. Firstly, does anyone have a good acronym for this experiment? I tried PONS but don’t really like it. Also, I wrote up a list of what each person needs for next week’s endeavors. If I’ve estimated times correctly, we need 9 people to do pollinator observations, 3-4 ppl for FNC (but the more the merrier), and 3-4 people for flagging plants beforehand (again the more the better) :ech PONS equip list.doc What we still need : 9 possible remnants have been chosen (based on size of flowering plant populations in 2004 & 2005) and the back ups as well so here they are: Hopefully Friday pm or Monday pm we can drive around to these sites and assess the abundance of flowering Echinacea plants, and also get a good understanding of what may be co-flowering with Echinacea next week. We will need to be flexible…if there aren’t enough plants flowering, then we will have to push the experiment back, and our second round later in the summer will have to be less than 2 weeks apart from the 1st round as we had originally planned. A recent addition to our project is the potential to assess reproductive success using the style persistence method since it will be very valuable data and we are going to be collecting styles anyway for Kate. We need to finalize protocols (I will try to post mine asap), figure out how to randomly select fl. plants in Staffanson and Landfill, the largest remnants, and I need to do some more practice runs of FNC with the newly made forms that Gretel helped me with today. We also will hopefully be able to do some practice runs of insect collecting this Friday with beemaster Amanda. I think field season is starting to get into full swing. Thank you to everyone who has helped thus far with suggestions and advice. It has truly been appreciated. A certain someone has thrown the digital gauntlet down, and being who I am, I cannot stand by and let that someone’s remarks pass. Generations of Raths back to the Dark Ages would roll over in their graves were their descendant to back down, spineless, before a challenge. I shall outmaneuver my opponent by focusing on quality, not quantity. My posts shall be masterpieces of prose and picture, and my adversary shall soon bow down, defeated. Today was a rather productive day, as Amy and I flagged transects in Nessman, Stephen’s Approach, KJ’s, Northwest of Landfill, and East Riley. They all went fairly quickly one we got the procedure down: Determine where the plants correspond to the map, lay down the first metre tape, choose and flag random spots on the length of the tape, measure outwards from that tape to the edge of the remnant, and flag that point as well. After that, we put in shiners and tags so that we could be sure of finding them again. We also flagged plants for Jennifer’s and Diedre’s tissue samples. Pictures below are of:
Note: As I was writing this, Dr. Ridley walked in carrying two Pappa John’s pizzas as a break from the healthy salads we have been eating all week! A move worthy of a saint! Hey Everyone, I’ve finally made it to the flog. So excited. ^_^ For all our loyal followers, my name is Kate and I’ll be starting the Masters program at Northwestern in the fall. Thus, part of my energy this summer will be devoted to thinking/researching/exploring possible masters projects. Stuart, Caroline, and Megan have already been very helpful in setting me on the right track; they all have some great ideas and thoughts on what I could focus on. I’m feeling a bit spoiled for choice, actually. Guess I have a lot of reading to do! I will also be working with the Pollinator Sub-team of the Echinacea Team. Allegra, Amanda, Mimi and I will all be tackling various aspects of the great pollen issues surrounding Echinacea. The questions I will be attempting to shed light on include: I’ll be posting a proposal type document with my methods soon, so watch for that. Ta for now, Potentilla arguta and other species for my project. If everyone could keep a lookout for these species, I would be grateful. Potentilla arguta More spp and images to be added later. I was recently informed that Daniel Rath has been “outblogging” me on the FLog, and I agree, he has– but it stops now. Daniel updates the FLog several times a week, and that’s cool. So from now on, every post Daniel posts, I too will post a post. Plus one. Consider this a challenge, Daniel Rath! To make up for lost time, and because if you’re anything like my mom (and you might be my mom– hi mom!) you love photos, here is a visual record of the past two days. 1) The past two mornings have been surprisingly cold here in K-town! Around 11:00 AM the truck bed has absorbed enough heat for a really fine cuddle. 2) On the way back from the ’99 South garden, Gretal (Queen Bee) and I saw a little hummingbird trying to run with the big dogs (some swallows) atop the telephone line. 3) In the end, he was a bit of an outcast. 4) Today many of us went to the landfill to practice our independent project techniques (characterizing floral neighborhoods, catching pollinators, collecting pollen from non-Echinacea flowers, etc). I expected a dump, but I found a wonderland– just see for yourselves! Don’t be fooled, it’s not Italy- it’s a DUMP. In Kensington!! Mimi couldn’t imagine what good deed could have landed her in such a place! Then we found this Prairie Lily (Lilium Philidelphicum) We got pulled over by this cop, and she made us characterize a floral neighborhood! There was also some flowering Leadplant (Amorpha canescens) I will post again soon about how my independent project plans are shaping up, so stay tuned. Don’t forget to leave feedback in the comments!! Edit: Click on the photos if you’d like a slightly larger image. Can you match up the Team Echinacea member with his or her handle, that is, the alias used over the walkie talkie radios? Answers to be posted later this week … The real deal The clever handle |
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