Sarah Baker presented “Flowering phenology of Echinacea angustifolia in Minnesota tallgrass prairie remnants over three years,” the results of her summer 2013 REU project, at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research, University of Kentucky, on 4 April 2014.
Here’s the presentation…
|
||||
|
An ideal position for either undergraduates or graduates interested in gaining field experience. The Echinacea Project is looking for interested and enthusiastic summer field researchers for the 2014 summer field season. Our project investigates how small population size and reduced genetic diversity influence individual fitness, population demographics, plant-insect interactions and evolution in the purple coneflower Echinacea angustifolia. This is a great internship or summer co-op for aspiring ecologists, conservation biologists, and evolutionary biologists! Read about what it’s like working and living in Minnesota. Qualifications: College student or recent graduate, wants to work outdoors, is patient, has good hand-eye coordination and fine motor skill, willing to work hard even in inclement or hot conditions, and interested in ecological research. No experience is necessary, but you must be enthusiastic and hard-working. Details: The field season runs from June to September. The exact start and end dates are negotiable. There is a $440/week stipend and housing is supplied. How to applyPlease send a cover letter, your resume, and a transcript (unofficial OK) in one email to echinaceaProject@gmail.com. Use the subject line: “Summer Field Researcher 2014” and format your cover letter, resume, and transcript as pdf files. Begin each file name with your surname. Please ask one of your references to send a letter of recommendation to echinaceaProject@gmail.com.  Laura taking data
Send your application via email to echinaceaProject@gmail.com by 6 March 2014. Students who are now and will be undergraduates in Fall 2014, should also consider an REU internship. Review of applications will begin on 6 March 2014. We’ll accept applications until positions are filled. Be sure to include an email address and phone number where you can be reached during March. Members of groups underrepresented in science are particularly encouraged to apply. More informationIf you have any questions, contact Stuart via e-mail or phone (847-835-6978). Read about the project’s background. There are opportunities to work on the Echinacea project as a volunteer, a research intern, summer field researcher, REU intern, graduate student, undergraduate lab investigator, short-term undergraduate intern, K-12 educator RET participant (Research Experience for Teacher), research collaborator, or visiting teacher/researcher. We’ll post information as new opportunities become available, but feel free to contact us. Summer field researcher
If you are enthusiastic and want to gain field research experience, please read about summer field research positions available for this summer. These are great internships or summer co-ops for those interested in one or more of these topics: insects, plants, ecology, evolution, conservation biology, habitat fragmentation, pollination, tallgrass prairie, and geographic information systems (GIS). We welcome applications to these positions from anyone. We encourage members of groups underrepresented in science to apply to all positions. Some spots on the summer team are reserved for undergraduate students through the NSF-funded REU program…
REU (Research Experience for Undergraduate) participantThe Echinacea project offers several REU summer field research positions. Please read the general description for summer field research positions and note the details for both REU programs. All REU participants must be enrolled as an undergraduate student during the upcoming summer and must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. Students in groups underrepresented in science are encouraged to apply. Postdoctoral researcherA postdoctoral position is available on the Echinacea project. The postdoc will collaborate with Stuart Wagenius (Chicago Botanic Garden) and Ruth Shaw (University of Minnesota) on quantitative genetic and demographic studies of the fragmented population and associated field experiments and will have the opportunity to participate in developing evolutionary models that incorporate our accumulating understanding of genetic and demographic processes within the study system. There is considerable potential for the postdoc to develop further research projects pertinent to the overall goals of this study. Volunteer at the Chicago Botanic GardenMany volunteers help with all aspects of research at the Chicago Botanic Garden, September through May. We always need help 1. cleaning seedheads, 2. scanning, counting, and weighing seeds, and 3. extracting DNA & running PCR. We also usually have a few other projects going on involving microscope work, curating our insect collection, working in the molecular lab, taking photographs, database maintenance, web development, or something else. Also, we can always use help with data entry! Let Stuart know your interests, skills & expertise and we’ll see how you can help the Echinacea project!
Graduate studentThere are several ways for graduate students to get involved in the Echinacea project. Ruth and Stuart advise students in several programs. Current students are working on a variety of thesis projects. Please contact Ruth about programs at the University of Minnesota. Please contact Stuart about programs at Northwestern University and at the University of Illinois–Chicago. Please contact Stuart about working at the research site. Undergraduate during academic yearIf you are a current undergraduate student interested in an independent study or a short-term internship (e.g. J-term), please contact Stuart at the Chicago Botanic Garden or Ruth at the University of Minnesota. For more information or to apply, please email Stuart at the Chicago Botanic Garden. K-12 science educatorsAre you a K-12 science educator interested in gaining summer field research experience? Please consider this paid professional development opportunity that involves collaborating with Echinacea project research scientists. During a summer at the research site in western Minnesota, teachers will participate in the design and implementation of new experiments, assisting with ongoing field projects, modeling or analysis of experimental data, or other activities that will contribute to the Echinacea project. Teachers will develop a plan to bring their new experiences and knowledge at the emerging frontiers of science back into their classrooms (with funding to support the plan!). Teachers may also help develop a summer research program for their students. We are looking for educators interested in integrating research and education about one or more of these topics: insects, plants, pollination, ecology, evolution, habitat fragmentation, conservation biology, modeling, geographic information systems (GIS), computer modeling, spatial mathematics. If you are interested, please contact Stuart with a brief email explaining your interests and qualifications. We are particularly interested in working with teachers at urban or rural schools and those at less well-endowed school districts. We urge Teach for America teachers to apply. Also, we encourage the participation of science educators who are members of underrepresented groups. Contact Stuart before 22 November to be considered for a position during the next summer. Note: Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and be currently employed as a K-12 science teacher or community college science faculty. Read more about this opportunity on our new page.  Dayvis (REU 2013) collects pollen from an Echinacea head The main research project is to determine evolutionary and ecological consequences of habitat fragmentation on purple coneflower, a beautiful and relatively common prairie flower. The research site is in western Minnesota. Stuart Wagenius is the field supervisor. The narrow-leaved purple coneflower, Echinacea angustifolia, grows in the former tallgrass prairie and plains of North America, a habitat now fragmented by human activities such as agriculture, development, and roads. Echinacea now exists in isolated populations of various sizes. We know that seed production in isolated plants is limited by pollination and that genetic diversity is lower in small populations compared to large populations. We still don’t know the long-term consequences of reduced seed set, low-fitness seedlings, and reduced genetic diversity on the persistence of these populations. During this summer, we will systematically map about 2000 plants in natural populations that have been observed annually since 1996 to compare the fecundity and mortality of plants in small and large populations. For another ongoing project, we will measure growth, flowering, and fitness traits of plants growing in research plots. The goal of this project is to estimate the genetic and environmental influences on Echinacea plants originating from small and large remnant populations. In addition to measuring plants and collecting data, we will maintain plots by mowing and weeding. You will gain skills in identifying plants, surveying natural plant populations, measuring plant traits in experimental plots, hand-pollinating plants, and observing & collecting insects. You will learn many techniques for experimental field work in plant ecology, genetics, and plant-insect interactions. Specific skills you may gain include collecting seed, surveying and GPS techniques, artificially pollinating flowers, identifying insects, mapping plants, and characterizing communities. You will also gain appreciation for long-term experiments and work as part of a team. A day on Team Echinacea: There is no “typical” day with the Echinacea Project. Each day comes with a different set of opportunities and challenges, but there is an overall theme. We usually begin at our research station, the Hjelm House, with a team meeting at 8:30 am to discuss the plan for the day. Then we split up to complete that morning’s tasks. What we do varies a lot from week to week, but we often map Echinacea plants, measure plant heights, and assess timing of flowering. Most days, we head out to a nearby native prairie remnant site or to one of our experimental plots. We then return to Hjelm for lunch. We eat lunch together at picnic tables and discuss project ideas, practice giving presentations, and bond as a team. After lunch, we head back out to the experimental plots or remnants. At the end of the day, we again meet as a team at Hjelm to debrief before leaving for the day. The non-local team members (REUs, field assistants, and RETs) live together and typically make dinner together or go swimming in a nearby lake after work.  Living: The study area is a rural agricultural community. The closest towns are Kensington (zip code 56343) and Hoffman (zip code 56339), MN. Alexandria, a larger town with a movie theater, is 20 miles away. In Solem township there are dirt roads, a highway, railroad tracks, wetlands, and lots of corn and soybeans. There are prairie remnants scattered throughout the township. You’ll live in a house with basic amenities. You’ll share the common area and cook with other team members, but you’ll have your own space and a bed. Usually we’ll eat lunch together at our base station. Interested in applying to one of our positions? Check out our current opportunities. Thanks for reading all the way to the end of this page. We like to have people who read carefully & pay attention to details on our team. To indicate that you have read this page & paid attention to details, please include the word runestone in your cover letter. We’ll note that favorably when we review your application. We hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and is embracing the cold weather and snow! A couple big things have happened in the lab over the last few weeks. We have two interns, Grace and Aaron, from Carleton College who are working in the lab during their winter break.Their main project has been deciding how to proceed with the Echinacea pallida and E. angustifolia heads we harvested from Hegg Lake this fall. Dayvis observed pollinators and took phenology data on these heads during the summer for his REU project and now we’re interested in seeing if these two species have actually hybridized in nature. Grace and Aaron are currently working on making flowering schedules for the heads we collected.
Stuart heard back from the NSF with good news! They’re funding the proposal he submitted this summer! With this grant money he plans to examine constraints on reproductive fitness of Echinacea in remnants by combining data on spatial isolation, flowering phenology, and mating compatibility. Really cool stuff! Other than that, it’s business as usual here at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Our volunteers have been working hard cleaning heads and counting seeds. We’re definitely making headway on this year’s harvest! Stay warm!
Life outside of Kensington has seemed hectic to say the least. I arrived home in Chicago last Thursday, and the next day, Dayvis and I presented our research at the REU symposium at the Field Museum. Shown below is a photo of me in the iconic museum lobby after giving my poster presentation.
The symposium on Friday was a bittersweet culmination of all my work this past summer, and a large part of me wanted to return to the rolling cornfields of Minnesota. I wish Team Echinacea all the best as they begin the long process of wrapping up a summer of research. Poster pdf: Echinacea pallida started flowering on Sunday. Since then I have been able to observe, collect, and film the different species of insects that pollinate this plant. It has been such a wonderful experience to work surrounded by the beautiful landscape of the Hegg Lake Wildlife Management Area. I am so excited to start getting data that will elucidate the real possibilities of hybridization between Echinacea pallida and Echinacea angustifolia.
Hello, everyone! If you couldn’t tell from the title, I am Sarah Baker. I am a rising Junior at St. Catherine University and an REU intern this summer. I am a biology major with an interest in wildlife and conservation biology. During the academic year, as well as being a student, I work as a teaching assistant for ceramics courses at my school. I will also be working as “animal room technician” this upcoming semester, taking care of organisms used in labs and research for biology related courses. Anyway, a bit of information about me: I grew up in Golden Valley, Minnesota and spent a lot of time in my childhood and teenage years outdoors. I often went hiking, canoeing, biking, and other types of adventuring outdoors with my family and learned much about nature from those experiences. My father, being a biologist, would often point out various plants and animals to me and identify them, teaching me what they were and interesting facts about them. These excursions fed my interest in wildlife and conservation. In the future, I plan to attend graduate school to study wildlife or conservation biology. When I’m not doing cool science-y things, I enjoy making pottery, being out in nature, sailing, and hanging with friends. I am also the president of the ceramics club at my school where we host Empty Bowls community service projects to raise money for Minnesota Open Arms. This summer, my independent project will focus on flowering phenology of various remnants. I will be adding to a data set from 2011 and 2012. My main interest with this project is to see if there are correlations between peak flowering times of the same remnants across multiple years. I look forward to all I will experience this summer! If you are interesting in learning a bit more about me, check out my webpage on the Echinacea Project website!
Sarah Baker The second week of the 2013 field season for Team Echinacea was excellent. We finished searching for seedlings and found a grand total of 102 seedlings in 13 remnant populations. We laid out the main common garden experiment with over a thousand orange, blue, and lime flags to guide our walking and to enable us to identify individual plants. We also began assessing survival in the recruitment experiment. On Wednesday Ilse presented results to the team on her aster analysis of 17-year fitness records for about 600 Echinacea plants in our main common garden experiment–details to follow. Pam took out her big new photosynthesis machine for its first trial run. Storms and wetness rained us out all day Thursday and we were without power for two hours on Thursday and about 18 hours on Friday. Team members are refining their ideas for independent projects and soon will be able to make their own posts. (IT folks at the UMN said they fixed the access problems-we’ll see.) Stay tuned to read about their awesome experimental plans! You can read about some of our team-members on our their Echinacea Project webpages… Next week we aim to finish assessing survival, flag another experimental plot, measure more plants, work on independent projects, and purchase/make/organize equipment and supplies for our experiments. We are also looking forward to Amy Dykstra’s visit. She will talk about her dissertation research. We are making updates via twitter and facebook. These media have proved to be more reliable than this flog, but we hope that changes soon. See links on the Echinacea Project’s main web page. We hope to set up a venue for sharing more of our photos–stay tuned for that, but here are a few photos from this past week…
Searching for seedlings at LF (the landfill site).
An orchid (Cypripedium calceolus)
flowering at the KJ site.
The team on the porch of the Hjelm house.
First trial of the new phtosynthesis machine.
Sorting flags to reuse & recycle.
We estimated 2600 flags here to reuse. This summer, REU student Jill Gall collected ants from prairie remnants in Douglas County. Part of her project was identifying specimens to genus and sorting them by morphospecies (i.e. you know they’re different species, but you don’t know which species they are). This fall I met with Dr. Sean Menke, an ant ecologist at Lakeforest College, to look at the specimens she collected and get advice about how to identify ants. His advice has helped me make move forward in identifying the specimens we collected this summer. The challenge with distinguishing ant species is that a lot of the most obvious characteristics, such as size and color, vary within species. The traits that do distinguish species vary across genera. For instance, in the genus Formica, species can be discerned based on the hairs covering certain parts of the body and the glossiness of certain body parts. In Lasius, one of the key traits is the orientation of the hairs on the antennal scape (the part of the antenna closest to the head). With some genera, species identification is especially difficult. One of these is the genus Myrmica. After looking through a large number of specimens, I have come across four types that I believe are separate species. The differences are in the shape of the antennal bend and in the shape of the flange that covers the base of the antennae. I have circled this area in the pictures below. For three of the four morphospecies, I have included pictures of two individuals. See if you can spot the differences.
|
  |
|||
|
© 2024 The Echinacea Project - All Rights Reserved - Log in Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||||
