Hello flog, it’s good to see y’all again. Today, I decided to continue my flvlog Youtube series to account today’s activities. I hope you can enjoy my clownery!
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Lately we’ve been having a surprisingly easy time competing with pollinators to harvest pollen for our pulse-steady experiment. What’s going on? Is it just the end of flowering or does the global pollinator decline have West Central Minnesota in its grasp? Only time and science will tell, but until then, please enjoy the anthem we composed this morning while collecting pollen. Where have all the good flies gone  Special thanks to Jay Fordham and Shea Issendorf for lyric contributions Hello, flog followers! This is going to be a joint flog post for Sunday and Monday (mostly Sunday…). Sunday was a travel day for me. I woke up at 5:30 am and hopped on the Amtrak train in Dearborn, Michigan and headed back to Chicago, Illinois.  While on the train I worked on revisions for my Master’s thesis and worked on a poem while I drank my coffee.  When I arrived in Chicago, I had two hours to kill before my next train. So, I grabbed lunch at Chipotle and hung out in the main hall of Chicago’s Union Station.   While on the train from Chicago to Minneapolis, Minnesota I worked on my Master’s thesis some more.   When I arrived in Minneapolis I had to take the Green Line to Stuart’s brother’s house. This is where I left my car while I was out of town. So, here is a thank you to him and his family for that!  There went my remaining woes I am so thankful Finally arrived in Kensington, Minnesota around 1:15 am and in bed by 2 am.  Woke up Monday and got to work with Team Echinacea after my week away! We went out to Experimental Plot 2 and took phenology data and administered our pulse/steady pollination treatments.  After work in P2 I went out to Riley and collected seeds. Hello flog! Today, we were unfortunately rained out of some of our planned weekend fieldwork. Though we were hoping to do some more crosses for the pulse/steady pollination experiment, early morning rainstorms settled in before we could head out to P2, and they stayed through much of the day. Wet pollen is not the easiest to effectively swipe on styles, while rainy weather can also delay pollen presentation on anthers. Instead, Stuart decided to call off the day’s fieldwork, leaving the Town Hall crew to spend the morning inside and dry. While Erin, Jay, and I were puttering around Town Hall enjoying the sounds of raindrops on the windows, Amy and Riley were making their way back from their own weekend excursions further south near the Twin Cities. At least the sunny weather held out long enough for Erin, Jay, John, and Stuart to do a round of crosses on steady treatment plants yesterday, all while I collected the last of the style persistence data from my own interspecific crosses. I’m excited to start crunching the numbers and considering the results!  Just before the stormy weather set in, we also took the chance to enjoy a lovely weekend evening on the shore of Elk Lake.  Breaking news from Team Echinacea East, back here in Wooster, Ohio! Upon returning to the lab this morning, the team was ready to begin work again after our trip to Minnesota. However, we were not prepared for the tragic scene that greeted us when we arrived. The Great Waluigi Wall of Williams Hall, constructed earlier this summer (a remembrance to our lab mate Mia while she was away in Arizona back in June), had vanished without a trace!   After taking a moment to grieve and process this traumatic event, the team regrouped to further assess the situation and get to the bottom of this heinous crime. We discovered that while The Great Waluigi Wall was gone, not all the Waluigis of the lab had disappeared. The five Waluigis spread throughout the lab appear to have been left unharmed, much to the team’s relief. But despite the team’s best and most valiant search efforts, the other Waluigis could not be located.  As to the suspect of the crime, the team thought long and hard about who could possibly be motivated to such a terrible act. Here, we arrived at a heart-breaking conclusion. The only person who had been in the lab during our time in Minnesota and thus the only person with direct access to the Waluigis would have been Mia herself! However, while still lacking the evidence, this awful possibility cannot be confirmed for certain at present. Team members reached out to Mia for a comment on the situation but received no response. It even appears that our suspect has gone so far as to flee to Arizona, forcing the team members to consider this frightening possibility.  In the meantime, if anyone has any information as to the location of the Waluigis, please contact Ren, Miyauna, or me at Team Echinacea East. A memorial service for The Great Waluigi Wall will be held on 26 July 2019 at 4:00PM (EST) in Ruth Williams Hall. Hello flog readers! Today, I attempted my first ever flvlog… a flog, but in vlog form. I hope you can enjoy my wacky account of today’s events in my true native accent.   Town Hall woke up bright and early this Saturday– or at least those of us left, since four of us are traveling this weekend! We had intended to perform the steady treatment in the pulse-steady pollination experiment before it got too hot and the bees beat us to all the pollen, but the end of yesterday’s thunderstorm system was still rolling through Kensington and we decided to wait it out. After the rain let up we finally arrived at the plot but found neither pollen nor pollinators. We futilely scraped wet pollen out of anthers until deciding to return when the sun came out. A little over an hour later it had become a gorgeous day, and we were greeted by insects of all kinds.  Unfortunately the heavy rains and the cold front seem to have scrambled pollen production. The heads we bagged to harvest pollen from didn’t show signs of presenting pollen any time soon, and heads in P2 were lucky to have one or two anthers with pollen on them. We collected what data we could, but decided to hold off on pollination until tomorrow. Our expedition wasn’t for naught, however, because Miyauna found an Andrena nest!  We bagged a few more heads in the area around P2 so that tomorrow we’ll be able to harvest plenty of pollen. Though Miyauna found a tiny bee nest with ease, she was briefly puzzled when Avery disappeared into the prairie.   With Avery located, we headed back to Town Hall to nap and putter around doing chores. We celebrated the bee hole discovery by voyaging out to the DQ in Starbuck, which has the most charming signage and most savage mosquito population of any ice cream joint we’ve visited.  Today was a legendary day in the history of Team Echinacea. It was raining this morning and we started late, but the weather fortunately cleared ub and the forecast was combletely ubended for a nice, sunny, day! The day brought glory. We went out to exberimental blot 2 this morning to take bhenology data and work on our new bulse-steady bollination exberiment. All went well with Echinacea in B2, and all was made astronomically better when the Wooster team found an Andrena nest just outside of the blot! WOOHOO! This was truly a great moment in the history of the Ison lab, as Jennifer’s goal of seeing an Andrena in its home was finally combleted. In the afternoon, we went out to B2 again to begin measuring the blot (we got nine rows done, but they had a TON of flowering heads). The Wooster crew dug ub the Andrena nest they found earlier in the day but were ultimately unable to find any cells that hold Andrena larvae. We did end a bit late, but it is safe to say that the skills we honed today in B2 are some we will be utilizing for the entire summer!   Today began with the pulse/steady experiment at P2 in which pollen is collected and added to viable styles either on a daily basis (the steady part of the experiment) or every three days (yep – the pulse part of the experiment). The goal is to determine if a steady treatment of pollen to the styles versus the pulse treatment of pollen leads to greater seed set. We quickly found another reason to be impressed with bees and their pollen collecting ability. The bees typically had their pollen sacs quite full while we could barely muster up enough to use in our experiment. 
The afternoon led to another planting expedition at West Central Area Schools (WCA) in Barrett, MN. The already 1700 or so Echinacea plants were united with The College of Wooster’s 300 plants. The twelve plots are filling up. The ultimate goal for these twelve plots is to determine how burning affects prairie, specifically if fall or spring burns are more beneficial to the prairie. Along with the Echinacea Team, WCA students will be able to use the plots for their own experiments along with assisting Stuart and The Echinacea Project for future years. A tremendous opportunity for our students to be able to be involved in a meaningful research experience while still in high school.  So, I have decided to break my flog posts in two so that readers can be updated on the goings-on of the team and my personal research. Town Hall Saturday started off with breakfast and everyone cleaning up the mess around the place that had accumulated all week. However, most of the cleaning was done while I showered. I did many of the dishes and emptied the dishwasher but when I got out to the living room I was blown away by how quickly 7 people can clean a kitchen, dining room, and living room. After cleaning, some people (I believe Ren, Avery, and Miyauna) went grocery shopping and others (Erin, Jay, and myself) went to a coffee shop and then bought groceries for the week.  When we returned to Townhall, Erin, Jay, Julie and I started a new game of Sundew Valley together. We had some trouble with it crashing in the beginning but we eventually got it going. Jay and Erin’s characters were accidentally wearing the same outfit (talk about a fashion faux pas…) and since I had never played before I spent ~15 minutes playing the fishing mini-game only to catch on herring and some seaweed. Despite Sundew Valleys innocent appearance the game is a lot more involved than I anticipated.  After some videogames, the whole gang watched the 2005 blockbuster hit and should-have-been-oscar-winner-for-best-picture movie, Sky High. Which some might describe as, “A clever hybrid of Harry Potter and The Incredibles”. Which I had purchased at an Alexandria gas station for $9.00. 
 At the end of the night some of us relaxed by watching Jeopardy episodes from the year 1999-2000. We were all amazed to see our work equipment as a part of the second place winner’s prize package.  Then everyone went to sleep because everyone minus me had to get up for a 6 am adventure to check out orchids! Personal Research Update For our readers that are unfamiliar, I am Stuart’s incoming Ph.D. student starting in the Fall. So, this Summer has been a lot about me exploring the tallgrass prairies and beginning the research that I will be doing for the foreseeable future. Here is a brief-ish research statement for what I am doing this Summer: “Parasitic plants are keystone species in many environments they’re found in and they act as keystone species by playing a role in nutrient cycling and in prairies they are hypothesized as being keystone species by keeping dominant grasses in check by suppressing their growth. However, it is unknown if parasites are keystone species in prairies and if they are, it is unknown which species serve this role. Therefore, I aim to collect seeds from many common species that could possibly serve as hosts. I will do this in order to conduct an experiment in which I grow parasites and hosts together in order to determine the effects of parasites on common plant species. Common potential hosts I aim to collect seed from are: Asclepias, Solidago, Poa, Bromus, Hesperostipa, Liatris, Ratibida, Rudbeckia, Artemesia, Cirsium, Galium, Carex, Viola, Dalea, Amorpha, Amphicarpaea, Gentiana, Gentianopsis, Astragalus, Lathyrus, Geranium, Lotus, Phlox, Medicargo, Melilotus, Pediomelum, Trifolium, Vicia, Calylophus, Boechera, Rosa, Heuchera, Silene, Oenothera, Geum, Achillea, Apocynum, Delphinium, Erigeron, Helianthus, Koeleria, and more.”  P. canadensis was the first plant I collected seeds from this summer.  I also collected seeds from Hesperostipa spartea (Porcupine Grass) and a handful of other host species. I have been struggling to finish collecting seeds from the parasitic Comandra umbellata (Bastard Toadflax) because many of its seeds have been eaten by some pesky granivore.  Luckily, I have been able to collect 1700 C. umbellata seeds and I am only 100 shy of my goal. Even luckier, some of the C. umbellata are beginning to flower again!  This summer has already been a fun one and full of exciting events and challenges I’ve had to overcome. Here is to many more weeks in Minnesota and me accomplishing my fieldwork goals!  |
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