Today we explored two prairie sites, one which had been burned recently and one which had not. It was startling to see the dramatic difference in the plants inhabiting each site, and the mosaicism that shows in the landscape of the burned site.
ALF West, the site that hadn’t been burned, was overwhelmingly dominated by non-native brome grass, while at the site that had burned, ALF East, we observed more diversity in grass species, as well as a very noticeable absence of the brome grass where it looked like the site had burned. We also noticed the impact of the fire on shrubs and trees in ALF East, and compared that to the new saplings coming up in ALF West. There were two Echinacea angustifolia plants that we observed in ALF West, growing in the gravel on the side of the road.
The shiny heads of the brome grass in the ditch bordering the road, with the burned area behind it
After reviewing the LCW site, I noticed lots of brome near the road, but not necessarily in the site. There were clustered lead plants and low grasses in the middle of the site. There were a few trees scattered throughout the site. I spotted 2 echinacea plants. The LCW site is on lower ground near a ditch and on the left side, there was a large hill. I could also see dry plants covering the soil. My group came to a conclusion that this site was not burned in the spring.
At the YOHW site, I noticed there was less plant diversity than at the LCW site. At this site, there were no tall grasses at all. The grasses and plants were very short. I saw one echinacea tag. There were medium sized shrubs that looked burnt or dried out. There was also no dry plants on the soil, which leads me to believe that this was burnt in the spring. On one bush, I could see the part near the stem was burnt or dried out, but the part near the leaves had growth. Also, at the YOHW site, I could see the soil more clearly becuase the grasses were more spread apart.
The YOHW site has much shorter grasses and plants than the LCW site. At the YOHW site, I could see the soil much clearer than at the LCW site. I suspect this difference is due to the fact that the YOHW site was burned this spring.
I graduated from Alaska Pacific University in 2022 with a B.S in Marine and Environmental Science with a concentration in Ecology and minored in Mathematics for Environmental Science. Currently I am an incoming graduate student at Northwestern University / Chicago Botanic Garden, pursuing a M.S. in Plant Biology and Conservation starting this fall.
Pronouns: She/They
Research Interests
I am very much interested in restoration ecology and land management. Prairies have always had a special place in my heart as my mom worked to restore the 20 acres of prairie surrounding my childhood home. My biggest interest is looking into plant-pollinator resources post fire.
Statement
I grew up in southeast Iowa, but have been living in Illinois for the past year and half. While there I worked for a land management company specializing in prairie restoration, invasive species removal, commercial herbicide application, and prescribe fires with many of the projects being contracted by Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
When I’m not working I love to be paddle boarding, hammocking, cooking a large meal, reading with my toes in the grass, or snuggling my 5-year-old tuxedo cat named Mo.
The Alf west site had multiple echinacea angustifolia plants and a lot of tall cool season grasses. There was a natural hill, fencing, power lines, and a road by the area.
ALF East
The Alf east site had no echinacea angustifolia plants that I could see, but I saw a lot of diffrent forbs and legumes. There were also many cool season grasses which where more tall and dense near the road. There was a natural hill and trees in the area. I also saw signs of burning, for exsample there were left over burnt shrub branches and the plant life was more diverse.
Conclusions
The two sites differed. The west site which had echinacea angustifolia was less diverse compared to the amount of diffrent plants seen in the East site. The ALF East site was clearly the site that was burned. The leftover burnt branches and the great amount of plant diversity compared to the West site shows this.
I did my undergrad in journalism and environmental science at Northwestern University, graduating in 2023. I also did my master’s at Northwestern, and defended last Tuesday (June 4, 2024)! This summer I’ll be finishing up my revisions to get my degree at the end of August
Pronouns: She/her
Research Interests
My thesis focused on the heritability of fire-stimulated flowering in Echinacea, which I think is pretty neat. I enjoyed using our awesome experimental plots to look into how parent and offspring plants might be behaving similarly (or not!). And of course, fire is super neat. As time allows, I’d love to expand upon my thesis work to make it more robust, including looking into selection of phenotypes, phenotype expression of plants in remnants, comparing remnants, and more.
Statement
I’m from Chanhassen, MN, but have spent the last 5 school years in and around Chicago. I feel lucky to continue to spend my summers up in Minnesota, as I love the prairie and the lakes and the people. My favorite activity once I get home from work is cooking with friends, and I hope to do lots of that this summer. I’m also looking forward to fishing with folks on the crew, and hopefully taking home the catch and making a meal of it. Yum!
Me pondering an Echinacea (purpurea, shhh) after graduation at the Chicago Botanic Garden
I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I majored in Biology and minored in Environmental Science.
Pronouns: She/Her
Research Interests
I am interested in learning more about the effect of prescribed burns on pollinator species.
Statement
I am originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I currently reside in Dallas, Texas.
In my spare time I play a mean game of Wordle (I usually get it in 3 or less attempts). I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, reading, talking to my houseplants, and watching reruns of Star Trek. Live long and prosper.
I Graduated University of Minnesota Class in 2022 with a B.S. in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, and a B.A. in Classics (aka. Latin). Currently I am a graduate student at Northwestern University/Chicago Botanic Garden, pursuing a M.S. in Plant Biology and Conservation.
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Research Interests
I am interested in restoration ecology, in particular for grassland ecosystems like prairies. Bees have always had a special place in my heart, especially the ground-nesters! Much of my the data for my master’s thesis will be coming from Echinacea Project’s ENTRF study on bees and fire in prairies.
Statement
I grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and remained in the area until I moved to Chicago to start my M.S. When not in the field, I like to run, climb, get on the water in any capacity, make my own kombucha, read, and hang out with my pet python!
I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023 with a B.S. in Botany and Environmental Studies. Since then I’ve worked with the Echinacea Project as a research assistant and lab manager.
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Research Interests
I am interested in processes that impact mortality in plant populations, like woody encroachment. I also get to help manage our demographic database for Echinacea, and I’ve really enjoyed gaining skills in this area.
Statement
I am from Milwaukee Wisconsin and spent my undergrad years in Madison, WI where I got acquainted with some really special places that sparked my interest in prairies and plants
In my spare time I like to bake pies, read books, climb rocks, swim in lakes, and grow my collection of knitting works in progress!
As part of my recent independent study with Stuart and Northwestern undergrad Lena Parnassa this spring, I took an initial pass at analyzing the data from our 2023 emergence traps. These data are an important contribution to the broader ENRTF project, which is geared at understanding how ground-nesting bees respond to prescribed fire in prairies. This independent study enabled me to learn a great deal about database organization, coding, and collaboration between data scientists. Before we could run any of our analyses, we had to wade through quite a bit of data cleaning to ensure all our joins were functioning properly. This meant that we had to prioritize the bee analysis rather than the bycatch in our traps (millipedes, grasshoppers, and so forth), so stay tuned for more in that department! We were also working with abundance data rather than species data, as identifications of all the bees we caught in 2023 are still forthcoming. This means that some of the data points in our analysis are most likely incidental, but nevertheless, here’s a visual of what we found!
Figure 1: Mean bee catch rate by site type. Catch rate refers to the proportion of traps which had bees.
Figure 2: Bee catch rate by site. Catch rate refers to the proportion of traps which had bees.
Mean bee catch rate by burn history. Only three sites were 3 years post-burn in 2023, other burn treatments had 7-8 sites.
It looks like remnant prairies had more bees than restorations, but there’s a ton of variation across sites of the same land use type. It’ll be interesting to see what other factors may be associated with this variation, if any. Once we get those species ID’s and confer with our taxonomist, we’d like to tweak our protocol slightly going into this summer to maximize our chances of catching the bees at a given site. We’re considering stocking our traps with propylene glycol to better preserve specimens, trimming the vegetation around traps to make sure bees can find the entrance, and deploying later in the day to give foraging bees time to find their way back to their nests. Looking forward to kicking of the 2024 trapping season!
NOTE: Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).
