Over 90% of flowering plants rely on insect pollinators for sexual reproduction. Pollination biologists often quantify pollinator effectiveness by counting the number of pollen grains a pollinator deposits on a plant’s stigma in a single visit. However, flowers in the Asteraceae, like Echinacea, are uniovulate, meaning that a there is just one ovule per style. Therefore, it theoretically only takes one viable pollen grain to fully set seed in an Echinacea ovary, which means the standard method of quantifying pollinator effectiveness may not be appropriate for Echinacea and other members of the Asteraceae. In this study, we wanted to estimate how many pollen grains are really necessary to set a seed in Echinacea angustifolia. We performed 60 hand crosses with varying levels of pollen deposited. Each cross consisted of nine total styles of which three were removed before the cross to get estimates of self-pollen deposition, and six styles were crossed with pollen from other flowering individuals. We then collected styles and stained them using fuchsin gel and to count the number of pollen grains using a compound microscope. We x-rayed the achenes, fruits, from the crosses to determine if a seed was present. Preliminary data shows that seed set varies with the pollen grains deposited. These data will advance our understanding of pollinator effectiveness in this uniovulate plant. By increasing our understanding of pollinator efficiency in the Asteraceae we can better predict the consequences of pollinator declines in fragmented habitats, such as the North American tallgrass prairie.
Post the Big Events you may think that the team’s trips to experimental plot two would be few and far between, well you would be mistaken. Zeke, Evan, Jennifer, and I (hereafter “Team CoWBee”) have been busy working there doing pollinator observations and a lot of painting. Today we went straight to Hegg Lake allowing us to get there while the bees were still sleeping. Zeke and Evan were busy watching the bees. Andy and Morgan joined us to work on phenology. While that was happening I was preoccupied with my independent project. What is my independent project you ask? Well, let me tell you!
Lunch with a view
In pollination biology, it is often thought that the more pollen grains a bee deposits the more efficient it is (the better it is for the plant). However, Echinacea technically only needs one pollen grain to make a seed. Once you consider that not all pollen grains are viable more than more may be necessary to ensure a seed is made. My question is how many pollen grains are necessary for there to be a 90% chance that the seed is made. How in the world am I doing this you may ask? Well, I must be the bee. Not literally but I need to deposit different amounts of pollen on styles and see if a seed is made. To deposit the pollen, I have been using toothpicks, a flosser picks, and a patience. Once I deposit the pollen I will come back remove the style allowing me to count the amount of pollen under a microscope. Today I spent the majority of the time being a bee, performing these hand crosses so that I can remove the styles tomorrow. My goal is to perform a total of 480 crosses (80 heads) (half of these are backups) today I did 54 crosses (nine heads).
Toothpicks aren’t only for hors d’oeuvres
Who uses flossers for their teeth?
A style under a microscope
Still, have a lot of work to do so until next time!
A rarely seen mammal in MN, dead or alive. This badger was along the roadside but didn’t appear to be hit by a vehicle.
Today was a busy day with groups going different directions. Phenology on P1, Bee photography at P2, insect pan traps, moving insect tents and a lesson on demography with a practicum test. Ryley getting accustomed to running the lycor which measures the photosynthetic rates and has the label micromole CO2/meter squared per second. How cool is that? The Echin Project seems to be flowing like a well oiled machine and the plants too. Tomorrow looks like it may rain so plans were made for Thursday to begin looking at some of the data/specimens we’ve collected over the weeks. Personally, i’m looking forward to Big Event 6: Contact 3-2-1. (I’m thinking of a word beginning with the letter B)
Good evening floggers. Today was an exciting day for Team Echinacea. Big Event 4: Revenge of the Bees occurred this morning out at p2. I unfortunately was unable to attend because I had to stake and move emergence traps. The weather was nice today so I imagine it was a fun time!
What p2 looked like from where I was this morning.
Today was my first day at a new site for the bee emergence tents. Yesterday I collected traps at Hegg Far West. Sadly, there were no bees yesterday. Today I staked and moved tents to Hegg North East with hopes of catching a bee in the traps tomorrow.
Tonight we had our weekly Journal Club. Mia picked an interesting paper titled “Experience teaches plants to learn faster and forget slower in environments where it matters” by Gagliano et al. 2014. Using the sensitive plant they showed that plants are able to show an elementary form of learning. We had a tantalizing discussion about the sentience and value of plants along with a discussion of the methods.
I would like to summarize the day from the perspective of my apartment’s egg consumption (we cooked up about 20 eggs today).
This morning me and Mia went out to Hegg lake to finish collecting data from Friday’s experiment on male fitness, and prepare for next week’s male fitness experiment (named: The big event 2: electric bugaloo). While we were there, Mia found a bird’s nest in the grass full of tiny chicks. They were very cute, so we chose to leave them alone rather than eat them. Once we finished, we went back to the roost, where I ate eggs for lunch (3 eggs down).
The bird’s nest at P2.
Mia found a spider hanging out on an Echinacea flower. It’s probably not a very good pollinator.
After lunch we played card games and Brigid made a beautiful chocolate cake (six more eggs down).
We decided it was too nice of a day to stay inside, so in the afternoon we went to Lake Carlos state park, to swim and play games, such as volleyball, and Kan jam (a Frisbee throwing game). We found out that Kristen played volleyball in high school, and Will’s overhand serve is hard to defend; also I can sometimes throw a Frisbee. We did not eat any eggs, while at the lake.
In the evening we returned to the roost. I made a stir fry with vegetables, chicken and 2 scrambled eggs.
I do not know what happened to the remaining 9 eggs (I’m sure they were put to good use); regardless I enjoyed a relaxing Saturday, with a perfect mix of Echinacea, team bonding, Frisbee, and eggs. Surely a good team eats eggs together (dietary restrictions allowing).
Today, Team Echinacea took a significant detour from our normal routine. Not only did we leave Solem Township on an adventure to Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge, but we didn’t even study Echinacea while we were there. No, instead we studied a member of the orchid family, the endangered western prairie fringed orchid.
Our trip north started early in the morning, with us leaving the comforts of Alexandria at 6:00 AM, in order to arrive at the site by 9:00 AM. Of course, a much-needed donut stop was had along the way. Once we arrived in the first of the two experimental sites, we got to work finding the prairie orchids.
Gretel teaching the team how to count flowers on an orchid
We do a full census of the prairie orchids that are on the experimental plots, which means we need to find every orchid that is within the boundaries of the study. And therein lies the challenge. The plants themselves aren’t necessarily too hard to find: big ostentations flowers, often with 5+ flowers on a plant. No, what is challenging is figuring out where one is within the experimental plots. The corner of every 10 meter by 10-meter plot is marked with a short wooden post, which, in tall grass and ankle height waters, at times, can be quite difficult to find. Of course, we learned to use our extreme geometry skills to locate the locations of where posts should be (as some posts simply weren’t there).
Little can one tell there are many plot marking posts within this picture
The ankle-deep water was much nicer that the occasion knee-deep water that criss-crossed the plots
All things considered, Team Echinacea had a very successful day as Team Orchid (or Team Platanthera, if you prefer). we found 584 plants within the experimental plots and got to see many new plants and birds that are not present in our Echinacea plots, like the showy milkweed and the upland sandpiper.
Get ready for tomorrow to hear all about the Big Event!
Hello Flog! Today was a great day out on the prairie. We got a lot of important things done, but more importantly, we had fun getting them done! Weather-wise it was a nice day, we were slightly concerned at lunch after a brief spurt of rain, but things cleared off and the beautiful weather held through the afternoon. While temperatures in western MN have gone down a bit, the mosquito population still seems enormous.
In the morning some folks worked on independent projects, a select few worked on planning a top secret project ‘The Big Event’ (flog post coming soon to an Echinacea project flog near you). I worked in experimental plot one with Kristen, Andy, Anna, and Michael to find and record all flowering heads, Its a big job but luckily not as big as experimental plot 2!
Kristen and Andy next to their prized flowering Echinacea
I took a break at about 10:30 to learn more about our brand new GPS unit named Darwin. This is an excellent investment for the project and will help us get a lot more field work done. It has many more useful functions than our GRS-1 units which seem to be terminally ill.
At lunch, we discussed the finer points of the 40-hour work week.
Post lunch many of us went back out to experimental plot 1 to find and record information on the Hesperostipaspartea that are planted near the Echinacea in that plot. Since it is a grass it can be difficult to spot, I was lucky enough to work with Zeke who seems to have been blessed with the ‘Stipa Sense’ or the ability to spot these plants from at least 2 miles away on a foggy morning.
This weekend Team Echinacea had nothing short of an adventure. Expecting good burn conditions on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and maybe even Wednesday, we packed our bags and headed northwest from CBG. After the quintessential falafel stop in the Twin Cities, we arrived at Hjelm around 9pm. Before we could hit the hay, however, we had one important issue to resolve: the farmhouse didn’t have any running water. We’d picked up some jugs of drinking water along the way, but we decided that it might be nice if everyone also got a turn to flush the toilet. So without further ado, we went and collected water from the roadside in 5 gallon buckets to have around for filling the toilet tank. This operation looked totally normal and chill.
Here’s the scoop.Water borrowers Abby and Ian make their getaway.
After eating breakfast and topping off the septic tank with pond water the next morning, we prepped for a burn at the hulze site. This involved filling water packs/buckets/tank, raking and mowing burn breaks, prepping radios, etc..
Jared plans out the burn on a whiteboard.Ian and I look on as Jared inspects our collection of water vessels.
Once we finished our prep work, we returned to Hjelm and had a hearty chickpea meal. Yum! A classic! I like to add salt and pepper and paprika and olive oil and spinach and hot sauce to mine. This is also when our reinforcements arrived. This was a bigger burn relative to most of our sites, a whole 15 acres, so help was appreciated. Thank you Amy and Brad and Amy and Colleen! Jared briefed us on the mission, and we got to hear the frustrating tale about how we’ve been skunked at this unit two years in a row. Every time we’ve tried to burn it, it’s been called off last minute for one reason or another. Last year there was allegedly too much smoke from Canadian wildfires and we were told no go. Will this year be different? Third time’s the charm, right?
Wrong. Once again, after all of our prep work was complete and we were ready to light a test fire, Stuart called in the permit and was told to hold off. The county was concerned about gusts over 25 miles per hour, though that’s not what we were measuring at the site. We waited hopefully for over an hour for a call back giving us the go-ahead, and eventually gave in to the fact that there would be none. So we packed up and headed back to Hjelm. There’s still hope for burning this unit later in the spring, but needless to say we were slightly grumpy.
To raise our spirits, we took a walk around the Wagenius property to scout out areas to burn the next day and check up on places we had burned in the fall.
Abby, Blue, Jared, Stuart, and Gretel walk through the southeast corner that we burned in November. Hope you like galium! They were plentiful here (as was brome).
For dinner, Abby, Ian and I made Abby’s chili recipe (the secret ingredient is farro (and paprika) (and dark chocolate) (and love)) and Stuart and Gretel made their cornbread. Yum again! I mixed my cornbread and chili together with butter and hot sauce and honey and, upon Abby’s recommendation, apple cider vinegar, which is now an essential chili condiment in my book.
I do something cooking related while Ian stirs the pot.
Having full tummies and hearts, we went to bed with the knowledge that Jared and Stuart were excited about burn conditions tomorrow, and thus, so were we. But you know who wasn’t? The state of Minnesota. That’s right, we woke up bright and early to find that the DNR had placed burning restrictions on much of the western part of the state, including the counties we conduct our burns in. That means another day with no burns. And we thought Sunday would be perfect! ARG. This forced us to take a step back and consider our options. We didn’t have a ton of other stuff to do in the field, and the forecast for the next few days was getting more dicey. So, with great reluctance, we made the call to head home early. We put away burn equipment, packed our vehicles, and were on our way.
Stuart helpfully supervises as Abby caries a 40 pound water pack down a flight of rather unforgiving stairs to store until next time.
Not wanting to end our trip on a sour note, we stopped by Staffanson Prairie Preserve on our way out to see who was flowering.
The crew peruses the prairieLook who’s awake! A pasqueflower!
We stopped in the Twin Cities for lunch, donuts, and to drop off Stuart’s truck at his parents’ place for them to have handy. For those of you keeping track at home, that means we have a 7ish hour journey to make in one vehicle that will be carrying 7 souls (one of whom is a dog). This made for a tight squeeze, but we made it work.
I tried to take a selfie to capture the coziness of the moment, but failed. Ian and I are prominent in the front, and you can spot Blue and Stuart in the back. Behind me are also Gretel and Abby, and Jared is in the passenger seat next to me
By midnight, we’d all made it back to our homes safe and sound. While we didn’t accomplish what we set out to do on this trip, perhaps, as Ian suggested, the real burns were the friends we made along the way.
This Saturday was a glorious day: Independent Bookstore Day! Every year on the last Saturday in April, the nation celebrates indie bookstores in all sorts of ways. In Chicago (and the Twin Cities and maybe other places), local bookstores participate in a passport event – visit as many bookstores as you can, get a stamp at each one, and win a prize based on how many you visit!
With 40 participating stores this year, visiting 10 would get you 10% off at all the bookstores for a year, and 15 would get you 15% off. Individual stores also often had their own special goodies for the day, including snacks, pencils, tote bags, and other exclusive (and often free!) merchandise. Alex and I were up for the challenge. In fact, we even took on a non-book related side quest, more on that later.
An approximate map of our odyssey
We started out strong with Bookends & Beginnings in Evanston, where we got free totes, some books, and our passports with our first stamp. We made our way south, visiting stores both familiar and novel.
A much needed tamale stopSkunk Cabbage Books gave us a Ratibida seedling with our purchase!
Upon reaching our tenth bookstore, we were both awarded pins that will give us a 10% discount at all 40 stores for the rest of the year. We rejoiced! But at our 11th bookstore, tragedy struck. I couldn’t find my passport anywhere, and I fear it was left at our tenth stop. We mourned! The show didn’t stop though, because Alex still had her passport, we had four more bookstores to go, and one very important side quest.
Stores 12-14 were located within walking distance of each other in Wicker Park, so we visited them all in one stop and got falafel sandwiches and waffle fries to boot. With full stomaches and a clear bath forward, we took of to Goose Island, home of the holy Restaurant Depot.
Our secret mission was to locate and extract one gallon of Wright’s Smoked Hickory for Alex and Lindsey’s smoke experiment. The job was difficult; mammoth quantities of random everyday ingredients tantalized us at every turn. However, I am happy to report the mission was a complete success. We escaped with our sanity intact and only one extra item (who can say no to a big ol’ container of chocolate hazelnut wafer rolls?).
Mission success!!!!
We hit our 15th bookstore on our way back north, where Alex was celebrated as a grand winner of the day (though they had run out of 15 store pins). Victorious, we made our way back to Evanston. Until next time, bookstores!
(we also saw some lovely street art)
LoversPlaying some Rimsky-Korsakov on the world’s smallest violin
Every year since 1996, Team Echinacea members record flowering phenology, taking measuring data and harvest heads of thousands of Echinacea angustifolia plants in common garden experiments. These experimental plots are prairie restorations and abandoned agriculture fields that are managed as grassland habitat. Some plots have multiple ongoing experiments within. Currently, the Echinacea Project currently has 10 established experimental plots.
This project status report will contain updates on experimental plots experimental plots 1, 2, 4, 5 and 8. Reports for the remaining experimental plots can be found on separate posts including Amy Dykstra’s plot (exPt03), the hybrid plots (exPt06, exPt07, exPt09), and the West Central Area common garden (exPt10).
Jo, Emma, Kennedy and Sophia measuring in the picturesque views of exPt02.
exPt01: Experimental plot 1 was first planted in 1996 (cleverly termed the 1996 cohort), and has been planted with nine other experiments in subsequent years, with the most recent planting being Amy Waananen’s inter-remnant crosses. It is the largest of the experimental plots, with over 10,000 planted positions; experiments in the plot include testing fitness differences between remnants (1996, 1997, 1999), quantifying effects of inbreeding (inb1, inb2), and assessing quantitative genetic variation (qgen1). There are also a number of smaller experiments in it, including fitness of Hesperostipa spartea, aphid addition and exclusion, and pollen addition and exclusion (the latter two experiments were continued the summer of 2022 and will have separate update posts). In 2022, we visited 7,273 of the original 10,673 positions planted and found 2,985 alive. Only 1,111 plants were classified as “flowering” in exPt01 this year. This is a drastic increase from the mere 79 plants that flowered in summer 2021– coincidentally, the plot was burned in the spring prior to summer 2022 and not prior to summer 2021. In summer 2022, we harvested 1,588 total Echinacea heads in exPt01. No additional staples were added to the experimental plot this year.
Some numbers for experiments within exPt01
Inb1: The INB1 experiment investigates the relationship between inbreeding level and fitness in Echinacea angustifolia. Each plant in experiment INB1 originates from one of three cross types, depending on the relatedness of the parents: between maternal half siblings; between plants from the same remnant, but not sharing a maternal or paternal parent; and between individuals from different remnants. All individuals were planted in 2001.We continued to measure fitness and flowering phenology in these plants. In 2022, of the original 557 plants in INB1, 92were still alive. Of the plants that were alive this year, 40 of them were flowering; this is a drastic difference from summer of 2021 where only one of the plants was flowering.
qgen: The qGen1 (quantitative genetics) experiment in p1 was designed to quantify the heritability of traits in Echinacea angustifolia. We are especially interested in Darwinian fitness. Could fitness be heritable? During the summer of 2002 we crossed plants from the 1996 & 1997 cohorts of exPt01. We harvested heads, dissected achenes, and germinated seeds over the winter. In the spring of 2003 we planted the resulting 4468 seedlings (this great number gave rise to this experiment’s nickname “big batch”). 1,467 plants in qGen1 were alive in 2022. Of those plants, 592 flowered this summer.
Other plots:
exPt02: To examine the role flowering phenology plays in the reproduction of Echinacea angustifolia, Jennifer Ison planted this plot in 2006 with 3,961 individuals selected for extreme (early or late) flowering timing, or phenology. Using this phenological data, we explore how flowering phenology influences reproductive fitness and estimate the heritability of flowering time in E. angustifolia. In the summer of 2022, we visited 1,856 positions of the 3,961 positions originally planted. We measured 1,438 living plants, of which 651 were flowering, with a total of 1,168 flowering heads. In the fall, we harvested 558 heads from exPt02. We began harvesting on August 10th and completed harvesting on September 12th. The large difference between the number of heads and the number harvested has to do with high levels of seed predation, mainly by ground squirrels. This year, Will, Jennifer, and other members of Team Echinacea published a paper in the American Journal of Botany using data from exPt02 – check it out here! Location: Hegg Lake WMA
exPt04: Experimental plot 4 was planted to gauge whether Echinacea from small remnant populations could be genetically rescued via an outcross to larger, more genetically diverse populations. Caroline Ridley and other members planted this plot in 2008. We did not visit exPt04 this year. Location: Hegg Lake WMA
exPt05: The only experimental plot planted at Staffanson Prairie Preserve (SPP), exPt05, was planted to compare progeny of maternal plants from burned and unburned sections of SPP. There were 2800 plants planted originally, but high mortality made it impractical to visit the plot row-by-row. Now, we and treat the plot like demography. We use our survey-grade GPS to find plants in exPt05 that have previously flowered and add more plants to the stake file if new plants in the plot flower. In 2022 we found 11 living plants, four of which were flowering! There were two heads that should’ve been harvested, but Alex and I forgot to harvest them (oops). Location: Staffanson Prairie Preserve
exPt08: Team Echinacea established quantitative genetics experiments to quantify additive genetic variance of fitness in Echinacea, with the idea that we can estimate evolutionary potential of study populations. The maternal parents of qGen2 and qGen3 are plants in the 1996, 1997, and 1999 cohorts. These plants were crossed with pollen from plants in remnants to produce seed for qGen2 and qGen3, which now inhabit exPt08. Originally, 12,813 seeds were sown in the common garden. Seeds from the same cross (shared maternal and paternal plants) were sown in meter-long segments between nails. A total of 3,253 seedlings were originally found, but only 363 plants were found alive in 2022. There were 14 flowering plants in 2022, and 15 heads. On a side note, 3 additional flowering plants were found in t-plot, but the heads were eaten before we could harvest any of them. Location: Wagenius property
Start year: Differs between experiment, see above. First ever experimental plot was in 1996.
Location: Differs between experiment, see above.
Overlaps with: …everything!
Data collected: Raw measuring data can be found in cgData repository. Processed data will be eventually uploaded to SQL database. Currently, SQL database has measuring data up until 2021.
Samples or specimens collected: See above for total harvested heads in each plot.
Products: Many publications and independent projects.
