Team Echinacea established quantitative genetics experiments to determine the additive genetic variance of fitness in Echinacea, with the idea that we can estimate evolutionary potential of study populations. Quantitative genetics experiments 2 and 3 (qGen2 and qGen3) represent the third generation of Echinacea in our common garden experiments. The grandparents of qGen2 and qGen3 are the 1996 and 1997 gardens. Plants from these experiments were crossed to generate qGen1 (a.k.a. Big Batch), and plants in qGen1 were crossed to produce seed for qGen2 and qGen3, which now inhabit exPt8.
We visit exPt8 every year to assess fitness of Echinacea in the plot. Originally, 12,813 seeds were sown in the common garden. Seeds from the same maternal and paternal plant were sown in meter-long segments between nails. A total of 3253 seedlings were originally found, but only 669 plants were found alive in 2019.
Jay, John, and Avery assess fitness of young Echinacea in exPt8. They’re so tiny (the Echinacea, that is… Jay, John, and Avery are regular sized).
In an exciting turn of events, we found a flowering plant in qGen2 this year! This was the first flowering plant found in exPt8. Fortunately for our one flowering plant, it had four flowering friends to cross with from the Transplant Plot. We took phenology data on the qGen2 head, measured it, and harvested it.
The presence of a flowering plant influenced Riley Thoen to make a new measuring form for exPt8 in 2020. In the past, the exPt8 measuring form was very different from other measuring forms. Through 2019, we measured all leaves of basal plants in exPt8; we only measure the longest basal leaf in other plots. Riley designed the 2020 exPt8 measuring form to mirror the measuring forms from other common gardens. In the future, the exPt8 measure form will have a head subform and team members will only have to measure the longest basal leaf of each plant found.
Start Year: 1996 and 1997 (Grand-dams), 2003 (qGen1 – dams), 2013 and 2015 (qGen2 and qGen3, respectively)
Data/material collected: phenology data on the flowering plant and transplant plot plants (available in the exPt1 phenology data frames in the cgData repo), measure data (cgData repo), and harvested heads (data available in hh.2019 in the echinaceaLab package; heads in ACE protocol at CBG).
We started today by searching for flowering plants in Experimental Plot 2. The plants in the approach are really getting tall, and lagging on the walk in can mean losing the person in front of you!
Shea and Julie battle their way through the grass on the approach to P2
Today I received a crash course in phenology. As heads begin flowering they progress through a number of stages that we record. Being able to distinguish between them is important to understand whether flowering has begun, or if we need to check back soon to record the start. Here are the four stages we saw today!
We record”rays up” after they’ve grown at least one centimeter!
We all paired up to search the rows, which eventually resulted in Riley and I facing down our advancing teammates as we tried to thread the needle between the other pairs. We have to be careful about where we step in the plots so we avoid trampling plants.
Our view of Shea, Jay, Julie and Drake as we tried to search the middle row; we needed to stand where Jay and Julie are!
In addition to plenty of plants we saw a menagerie of creatures in P2. My caterpillar adventures continue, and I am continually impressed by how many frogs live in the prairie! Back home in the swamp frogs are never a surprise, but here big leaps from little guys in the middle of the plot still startle me.
Leopard frog making a great escape from Drake’s handA mystery slimy guyA mystery fuzzy boy
This afternoon we were visited by Tracie, Josh and Ruth, and over the phone Julie, Amy and I chatted with Lea about methods we could use this season. It was exciting to have new faces and voices around the Hjelm House! We spent the sunny afternoon sweating and rechecking flowering plant locations in P1, and weather providing we should be able to finish up P2 tomorrow.
Jennifer L. Ison
Echinacea Project 2019
Assistant Professor of Biology, The College of Wooster (Wooster, Ohio), 2015 -present
Research interests
I’m a plant ecologist who is interested in how plants in human-altered landscapes mate. In particular, I’ve examined how spatial isolation and variation in flowering times limit mating opportunities between plants. Recently, we have examined how visits by different native bee species impact reproduction in insect-pollinated plants. We have found that the specialist-solitary bee, Andrena rudbeckia, is the most efficient Echinacea pollinator, both in terms of pollinating florets (individual flowers) and removing pollen (Page et al. submitted; Zelman 2019 thesis). However, we have also found that Andrena is typically only found in the largest Echinacea populations and is only active during early and peak flowering time (Ison et al. 2018 Oikos).
Last summer we conducted a large field experiment to understand how visits from different native bees contribute to a plant’s male fitness (siring success). For more information about this project please read Mia’s great flog post about the project. This summer Mia, Avery, Miyauna, and Ren are working genotyping the offspring from this study using previously developed genetic tools.
Statement
I’ve collaborated with the Echinacea Project for many years (before there was even a flog!). I started as a Team Member back in 2003 after graduating from St. Olaf College. After a few years, I started my dissertation research on Echinacea. After completing my dissertation, I took a few years off the Echinacea Project to work on a plant that takes 30 days (instead of 7 years) to flower. However, I couldn’t stay away from Echinacea and have been examining Echinacea‘s pollinators since 2013. When I am not watching bees on Echinacea, I enjoy hiking, especially with my very active nearly-four-year-old.
began the day with syncing visors in preparation for measuring plants at experimental plot 2. The majority of the team convened there at 8:30 and proceeded to measure, do phenology, and harvest heads at pt2. Some of us stayed back and finished measuring experimental plot 1 – specifically in the dreaded 99 South Garden. To add to the general dread, we saw a garden spider hanging out in the garden on some Indian grass!
The big garden spider (Argiope aurantia) in 99 South was a bit scary at 9 in the morning!
In the afternoon, I worked on measuring the functional traits (photosynthetic rate and transpiration) of hybrid Echinacea in experimental plot 7 with the Licor Li-6400XT named Helga. I’m very excited to finally have finished one row of measuring with Helga, as I have greatly struggled with equipping her to effectively measure Echinacea leaves.
I take apart and make modifications to the measuring apparatus on Helga, the Licor (Truly one of the more stressful moments of my life).
The rest of the team dispersed for the afternoon, and a lot was accomplished in a little time. Some people went to do demography in the remnants, while others did their independent projects in the various sites within Solem Township. The day ended with a number of us harvesting ripe side oat seed from experimental plot 1. The goal is to eventually spread the native seed in experimental plot 8. The night ended with me cooking a dinner for the roost and then the crew watching the season finale of the Bachelorette! Go Garrett!
P.S. The goats are great fun to have close to the Hjelm House and pt1!
Today, Team Echinacea continued our quest to measure every plant in P1. Yes, it takes a long time and yes, the big bluestem might be over our heads, but we will always carry on!
A quick recap of today’s measuring events:
After completing half of “Big Batch,” yesterday,(Big Batch is a large group of plants at the south end of the plot), we attempted to push ourselves to finish the rest of the plot today. And by “we” I mean two teams, in particular, decided to finish their rows as fast as possible (these teams will remain unnamed and totally not depicted in the pictures below).
Some A+ measuring
These teams finished their rows impressively fast, and, while we made a good dent in the remaining measuring locations, we did not end up finishing. In the spirit of competition, I have decided to rank the participating parties in how good they were at measuring. The results can be seen below.
Rank #1: All humans who participated in the measuring today. Some humans are not pictured here but they were also just as good
Rank #2: The goats. They’re good at removing buckthorn but not great at measuring echinacea
Today was an eventful Sunday for many members of Team Echinacea. This morning, members of the Roost and I drove to Glenwood to see our very own Waterama princess, Anna Vold, in the annual Waterama parade. Waterama is an annual summer festival full of fun activities to celebrate water and lake culture. This is fitting because Glenwood is a quaint little town next to a very big lake. The parade was very chill, along with everyone watching the parade. Things were very not chill as soon as we saw Anna Vold drive up on her float. I think all of Glenwood could hear us cheering for Anna.
Anna the Aquamania princess waving to her fans.
After the parade we headed back to Alex. I demanded that we all stop to take photos at a sunflower field right along the highway. We quickly did a round of phenology on the plants. I am glad that my friends were eager to let me take pictures of them because I think we all got a new profile picture out of the experience!
Right after doing some funology on the Sunflowers.
Evan’s arm was perfect for taking this selfie.
Later at the Roost Mia cooked French Toast for dinner. We also played a few rounds of KanJam and Werewolf. And after dinner, a few of us went bowling. It is no surprise that Zeke (who is good at every sport except basketball) won the first round. One beer in however, Andy was able to steal a win for the second round using the 8lb ball. The only negative part of this activity was that unfortunately they did not take music requests at the bowling alley. We had fun despite this hiccup.
Today, we started out the day in task forces and disperse throughout the common gardens and remnants. A number of us worked on p1 phenology and got absolutely soaked from the wet big bluestem. After that, many of us went inside while drying our stuff outside to work on R coding for our projects (I made a map of angustifolia and pallida ranges in the United States). The CoWBee team spent their whole morning at p2 working on their projects as well, and we were all able to convene for lunch, where some individuals gave us updates on the status of their projects.
After lunch, Kristen brought a team to move emergence tents around the prairie. The rest of us went out and did demography at the Loeffler’s corner, railroad crossing, and northwest of landfill remnants! The day ended and we all were happy to be home! I worked on writing a proposal for my project at night (and finished the map), and the rest of the roost team, along with Kristen and legendary Team Echinacea member Laura Leventhal, cooked a fried rice and tofu dinner for us all! The night ended with more intense games of Werewolf!
I kiss an Echinacea at the Northwest of Landfill remnant
It’s my last day here at the Echinacea Project 2017. I learned so many new things and met many wonderful people during my time here, and I’m sad to see my time come to its conclusion. Nonetheless, we made the most of the day…or we tried to at least.
The team started the morning off doing re-checks in p1 while Stuart and I spoke about my experience and my project. He gave me some valuable tips for presenting my work, and I made it a goal to finish my project assessment within a week. Post-our meeting and morning re-checks, I headed out to p2 with Will and Wes to harvest. Sadly, many of the heads we harvested already shed many achenes, so we spent a large portion of our time at p2 picking up achenes from around the plant. For one head alone, we picked up 102 achenes! We decided since lunch time was approaching that we ought to head back and be sure to grab tweezers for the afternoon harvest work.
Lunch was filled with a fun discussion of peach-day calendars (again) and plans for the eclipse Monday. We intended to start work, but the rain persisted, so I gave a brief presentation to the group about my summer research project, and the whole team contributed valuable feedback to enhance my project. When I was finished, we had independent project time, so Tracie and Lea headed out to do vegetation analysis, Alex and Kristen worked on pinning, and I worked on creating maps for harvesting my Echinacea heads.
After work, we relaxed for a while and eventually went to the Douglas county fair where I savored fried Oreos and cheese curds while gazing at prize-winning cabbage as big as a globe.
Now, I’m all packed up and ready to leave first thing in the morning. It’s been real. It’s been fun. It’s been a real fun summer with the Echinacea Project–Definitely one for the books.
This winter we’ve been working on ‘demap’, a project to coordinate 20+ years of demography and spatial data from remnant populations of Echinacea in Solem Township. When we are done we will have a great long-term dataset of over 3000 individuals in 27 remnant populations. We can use that information to answer all kinds of questions about flowering dynamics in natural populations, population growth, and the consequences of disturbances such as habitat fragmentation and fire! In particular, this January we focused our efforts on answering questions about the demographic consequences of fire. Does fire’s stimulation of flowering contribute to increased population growth over the long term? Do reproductive benefits of fire outweigh potential survival costs? We’re not sure, but we hope to find out by analyzing four populations– a large population that had one fire event, a large population that has not been burned in the past 20 years, a small population that burned once, and a small population that has not burned in the past 20 years. We’ll combine our demography data about flowering and survival with other information, such as the seedling recruitment and remnant seed set data, to project population growth.
Will was here to help out with the project in the first two weeks of January. We got a lot done with demap and made meaningful progress on other big questions such as “Is kale overrated?” and “What does overrated mean statistically?”. We also made big strides in terms of professional development by studying business mogul DJ Khaled’s keys to success. Stay tuned for updates!
Sincerely,
Amy
Demap is a team effort! In this shot, we are helping Will find a plant on the computer.
Efficiency and good data are two of our major goals at the Echinacea Project. Today we achieved the efficiency part, and hopefully while we were efficient we collected some good data. We started off the day with seedling refinds in big batch. After our work today, there are only fifteen more segments, and we’ll have hopefully found all the surviving plants in P1. Scott calculated we have somewhere around a 0.675 % chance of no rain, however we realized our luck was quickly running out. We decided to head away from the rain to the east and attempt to do total demography at East of Town Hall, however as soon as we put the GPS together it began raining. After eight plants, we called it quits and headed back for some computer work. I was able to finish my code for easily calculating how far a plant is away from a habitat edge.
Lunch was eaten in cold silence with a few sparse comments on how 68 degrees shouldn’t and usually doesn’t feel so cold. Roxy lighted the mood by taking out her squirrel jerky, which she had been saving for her last full day in Minnesota. This prompted comments as to why someone would eat something that has been dead that long. Stuart didn’t know why, but he in turn wondered why people would drink kombucha. This elicited discontented mumblings from our resident kombucha lovers. I’m still in the dark as to what exactly kombucha is, but I know it’s alive and I generally don’t like to drink live things.
In the afternoon we completed demography of East of Town Hall, Nessman, Bill Tom’s Gate, Landfill and Around Landfill. Sadly we learned that today was Gretel’s last day. We had so little warning of this that Will compared it to ripping of a bandaid: painful and quick. We eventually had to say goodbye to Gretel, Hattie and Roxy. I’m still unsure of how we’ll sync the visors without Gretel, but we’ll have to manage. I hate to leave you on that sad note, but I must.
The refs are reviewing the stake files. Looks like they’ll be delaying the demo due to rain.
