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Today was my last day of work with the Echinacea Project. We spent all of it doing total demo at Landfill and it was great! We had beautiful weather and many flowering individuals to investigate. In the morning the manager of the landfill came and talked with Stuart for a bit about the project and the remnants at the landfill. At lunch I gave the group a little presentation on my project for the summer. After another afternoon of total demo the Andes crew went into Alexandria for a night of wings.
 Stuart pointing out where Echinacea are at Landfill for total demo. Tracie, Anna, and Kristen doing total demo at Landfill. My project this summer had several aspects to it. In the first part, I was curious to look into the plant community diversity between various types of land based on their land use history. At Hegg Lake Waterfowl Production Area there are remnants, restorations, and abandoned agricultural fields. I conducted vegetative analysis on several areas with these land use histories and I will be analyzing that data in the next couple weeks. Along with vegetative analysis, I also collected data on flowering resources between each type of land as a measure of pollinator habitat quality. Another aspect of my project was to build a list of species whose populations were large enough to collect seed from without heavily damaging the population. I built this list and gave it to the local DNR for their use. Along with the seed collection list, I am currently putting together a species list for all known species at Hegg Lake to provide for the DNR.
I learned a ton this summer and I am so happy to have had this amazing opportunity to participate in ecological science. There is so much fantastic research and good science coming out of the Echinacea Project. Thanks for everything!
-Wes
So, today is the first day of my last week and also my last flog!:( This summer has been super fun and educational! I’ve had the opportunity to meet so many awesome people and learn a lot about the area I live in!
However, today was also the official last day of phenology! The last plant was at Steven’s approach and Lea had the honor of double checking its status as done flowering. This morning we worked on demo and seedling searches at Loeffler’s corner. In this particular area, someone decided to dump a bunch of woodchips and not just in one spot, no no spread out. This made it slightly depressing since there were a number of points totally covered by wood. Despite this challenge, plenty of flowering plants were still found! After lunch, the team also worked on demo.
 Tracie, Alex, and Wes working on demo It’s crazy how fast this summer went and I already start school in a week! I’m looking forward to my senior year and finalizing my college decision. Wish me luck!
Thanks again to everyone on the Echinacea Project Team!
Today was a pretty good Sunday. I did a lot of knitting and and hung out with Huxley and Bellamy. Some of us went into Alex to grab groceries, do laundry, and do work in Caribou. Wes came back from a camping trip with his parents and brought along delicious quiches for dinner. Kristen, Lea and I got excited talking about stuff we are going to do back in Chicago together. The summer is nearing its end! I’m going to miss the prairie, but I’m getting geared up to start working at the garden.
 Huxalito and Bobo enjoying a stroll around Andes.
Today was pretty relaxed here at Andes. Wes is gone for the weekend on a camping trip with his family and by mid-morning most of the team was out in Alex running errands. Lea spent some time with her plots at Staffanson but unfortunately the humidity meant the mosquitoes were out as well.
This evening, Lea and Tracie graciously took me to try Copper Trail Brewing Co. If anyone needs a good recommendation for craft brew in the greater Alex metro area, I would highly recommend it.
After checking our IDs, we were first mistaken for members of the notoriously famous “Bee Crew” (Amy’s team) although we quickly explained that we are actually part of the just as fun and exciting “Plant Crew.”
Our numbers are slowly dwindling (if only temporarily), as Stuart headed back to Illinois for the weekend. Many of us only have a few days left. It’s hard to believe that the field season is almost over, and we have so much to do!
We started off the day by doing doing total demo at our Aanenson remnant and harvesting some Echinacea heads from the remnants so that we can estimate seed set in natural populations!
We finished total demo at Aanenson and after some mishaps with a two ton hay bail we headed to Loeffler’s Corner to do some more total demo. It started misting almost immediately after we arrived and the rain slowly picked up. Our new GPS unit is water proof so this shouldn’t have stopped us but sadly our visors are not so we had to head in for the day. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing various indoor activities from learning R to pinning collections from the yellow pan traps!
Happy Weekend!
As most of you knew, today was the total eclipse that passed across the United States. Being in Minnesota, we were not in the path of totality, but we did have an ok view of the shadow cast by the moon.
Anyway, today started off a little wet and part of the morning was spent on individual projects. When it had dried off a bit, the team headed to P1 to complete rechecks and addition/exclusion of aphids. There is also only one plant left for phenology! Wes had the honor to go out and check it today, but other than that phenology is done!
At lunch, we caught a glimpse of the eclipse. However, it was a little risky since none of us had eclipse glasses….
Then in the afternoon, the team worked on demo at Riley and harvesting.
Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!
 Viewing the eclipse, demo at Riley, Tracie working on R, Kristen doing aphids, rechecks
This was a great first week, and great introduction to all the work going on this summer with Team Echinacea. Despite everyone else’s familiarity with the procedures, everyone has served as great mentors and teachers this week as I do my best to catch up.
Each day I spent a bit of time doing something different. Monday was spent looking at Lea’s project on Solidago and Liatris, some time on rechecks, and also demo! On Tuesday Stuart introduced me to Hegg lake and the number of interesting projects going on out at that location. I also pinned insects some this week with Alex (yay bees!) and did vegetation with Lea and Tracie.
I’ve set a few goals for myself this summer: these include becoming comfortable with naming the local vegetation and pollinators, developing my skills in R, and staying up on current literature. I’m really enjoying learning about everyone’s projects, developing my skills, and getting to know everyone better.
Today was mostly relaxed, but I decided to get out of the house for a bit this afternoon and check out Runestone County Park. The story goes that a group of Vikings were commissioned by the then current King of Norway to travel to the west. After traveling through the Arctic Ocean, this small group of Vikings ended up in the Hudson Bay and then trekked south into Minnesota. Near Kensington these Vikings were ambushed (likely by Native Americans) and left behind the “Runestone” or an inscription which detailed their encounter. A man and his son discovered the tablet in the late 1800s, prompting investigations into the first recorded history of Europeans in North America.
People remain skeptical of the Runestone, however, after numerous Wikipedia searches it seems that there is some evidence suggesting the story to be true. While we may never know which group of Europeans reached North America first, the park is pretty and serene, and serves as a unique part of an interesting local legend.
It was a sad morning saying goodbye to Ashley. She left everyone cute goodbye letters with hand-drawn Echinacea. Ashley was such a wonderful part of of the team! Lea and I took Ashley to Perkins in Alex early this morning to have breakfast with her before her shuttle picked her up. She’s heading to St. Louis for a couple days and then watching the eclipse before going back to school in Arkansas.
Lea and Ashley in Perkins. We already miss you Ashley!
Later in the morning Lea and I went out to a few remnants to stake for Rich Hood. We staked the Golf Course to Around Landfill loop, and then took some data at 5 of our plots at Around Landfill. We found some strange Artemisia ludoviciana plants that were losing their color.
A strange Artemisia ludoviciana. Tomorrow we are hoping to finish up staking and collect vegetation data at our Aanenson plots!
See you next time, flog!
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.
The next step of the ACE protocol is to take a random sample of all the achenes which will then be x-rayed for seed set and viability. The randomness of the sampling is important to not introduce any potential biases in which achenes are chosen. If only potentially fertilized achenes were chosen then this would lead to bias in the data; thence, inaccuracy in assessing the experiments from which they came. The sampling of all the achenes will then be separated into informative and uninformative categories. The informative achenes will be x-rayed since they will be able to inform whether or not there is a viable embryo inside the achene. The uninformatives are those that have been damaged, eaten by a critter, or “tinies”/ “micros” that were never fertilized. There is a reference image to help determine whether achenes are informative or not (see image below).
 General guide of how to identify the differences between informative and uninformative achenes Detailed instructions of how to take a random sampling is in the protocols folder. The envelopes, segmented circle and achene counter paper is located in the cabinet to the right of the center area close to the windows.
The achenes to be used are in the box that has “scanned behind this card” present. The informative achenes get placed in the clear plastic baggies located in the drawer labelled “plastic baggies” make sure to use the “Good Ones” in the drawer. The uninformative achenes get placed in a small white envelope. Both get a label that corresponds to the original manila envelope from which it came. Spread the achenes evenly around a circle. Randomly select two segments to separate into informative and uninformative. These two segments account for about 1/6th of the total achenes. Record the number of informative and uninformative achenes from that envelope on a sheet (see image below). Once achenes from the manila envelope are sampled both the manila achene and chaff envelopes are placed behind a marker “randomized behind this card.”
 Once the achenes are evenly distributed on the circle two segments are randomly selected and separated into informative and uninformative achenes It can also be helpful to write this number on the white envelope. The white envelope and clear baggie containing 1/6th of the achenes are placed in another box. After this point the informative achenes will be x-rayed.
The next post will focus on what happens after the achenes have been scanned: COUNTING!
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