The Echinacea Project

Statistics online Textbook

Here’s a link to a useful, online statistics textbook.

http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/

Project Proposal Revised: Asteraceae Breeding Systems

Today Josh, Gretel, Nicholas, and I found lots of E. purpurea (eastern purple coneflower), plenty for me to study as part of my independent project! We did not find much E. pallida (pale purple coneflower) though, so I unfortunately won’t get to study that species this summer.

Here’s an updated version of my project proposal for studying the breeding systems of E. purpurea, H. helianthoides, and C. palmata:

ProjectProposal.doc

Katherine Muller, updated project proposal

Here is a more detailed project proposal. This one focuses on what I want to accomplish this summer:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PqYExtOCkmHzcLkLP3bS04_4X9OlVSZ5pjSZEiV-xp4/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=COLOz7cO

Please let me know if the link doesn’t work.

Nicholas Goldsmith Updated Project Proposal

We have all been busy updating our project proposals. At the end of this post my updated proposal is attached.

Soon we will go out and try again to assess if their is enough Echinacea pallida for me to do crosses between it and Echinacea angustifolia. Until then, my proposal still includes both a Plan A and Plan B.

Echinacea Project Proposal 26 Jun2011.docx

Week in Review, 6/20-6/24

This week was much less strenuous than the last, thanks to a bout of rainy weather. Monday we took advantage of a dry day to conduct seedling searches and re-flag the common garden. Tuesday and Wednesday were too soggy for field work, so we stayed inside to work on independent projects and the new media initiative. Things finally dried up by Thursday afternoon, much to the relief of the antsier among us. That afternoon we learned how to conduct seedling recruitment surveys. These surveys are part of a long-term study to assess how Echinacea populations establish and persist in restorations (see Wagenius et al. 2011). Friday we conducted seedling searches at several sites (Landfill, NW of Townhall, and Staffanson Prairie Reserve) and planted seedlings at Staffanson.

That about brings us up to date, workwise. On Saturday we took a trip to Alexandria and enjoyed the wonders of the Runestone Museum. Callin took some delightful photos that he will share here shortly.

Project Proposal–cswitzer–2nd Draft

This is a proposal to a compatibility experiment in the remnants.

Proposal for summer research–2nd Draft–cswitzer.docx

This is the 2nd Draft. Now featuring compatibility vs. isolation.

Uff da! Maria’s Summer Project Proposal

Hey everyone, I’m Maria, making my first appearance on the flog. I’m from Malaysia, currently a sophomore/rising junior at Northwestern. Sorry for the late first post as I’ve been unable to get onto the flog until yesterday 🙂

I’m now sitting beside Amy Dykstra out on the porch of Hjellm house enjoying the scenery while freezing in the cold. We have not been able to go out to do field work since Tuesday afternoon(?) due to wet weather, but we’re going to go out and plant the remaining <20 seedlings at Staffanson after lunch and perhaps seedling searches. Hope that the ground dries up!

Anyway, here’s the link to the googledoc of my summer project proposal. I’m constantly updating it/working on it so it seems most practical to share it as a googledoc. Any input will be highly appreciated 😀 Hope that everyone will be able to assess the link. Let me know if the link is not working! Thanks!

*Update June 24: The googledoc link is updated. Everyone should be able to assess it now 🙂

Data Entry for 2011 Seedling Searches

This afternoon, Amber E. and I (others joined in later) started organizing the data sheets from the seedling searches we have completed so far this season. We are sorting the new maps and other data sheets for each site by focal plant number, and adding the new pages to the end of each site’s notebook. As we organize data sheets for each site, we are also reconciling the maps with the master data sheet for each site.

The data we have recorded on the frame data sheets will need to be entered into a spreadsheet, so that we can use the measurements to generate maps and distance matrices for those focal plants.

slingDataEntryBlank.xls
Here’s an Excel file we can use to do the data entry. For each frame data sheet, 2 people should enter the data. The first person will enter data in the DE_1 worksheet, and the second person will enter data in the DE_2 worksheet. The check columns in DE_1 will then allow us to check for data entry errors. The file should be saved as “slingDataEntry2011Page[page number]”.

I’ll put together a master list with all the frame data sheet page numbers. The frame data sheets will be in the seedling notebooks. People will enter their initials when they have completed data entry for a page number.

Let me know if you have suggestions to make the data entry work better.

Project Proposal Rough Draft

Zahler Summer 2011 Research Proposal.docx

Project Proposal Draft: Style Persistence and Self-Incompatibility

My independent project will be about the breeding systems of three plant species: H. helianthoides, C. palmata, and E. pallida. I will do pollen crosses to see whether the styles of these species’ florets shrivel when successfully pollinated (the way styles do in E. angustifolia florets). I will also try to determine whether these species are self-incompatible. Here’s a draft of my proposal:

Project Proposal Draft.doc

Categories

Experiments