Field Observations
This week I traveled out to
Wysong following a small thunder and rain storm that quickly pushed through the
area. I wanted to visit at that point to
see how the various plants/animals responded.
When I first walked into the area I couldn’t help but notice a large
white tail deer with her fawn which still had spots. As I walked into the area I of course scared
her away towards the woods. So as I walked
around the old field this week with the recent influx of rain I couldn’t help
but notice the darker colors of green that were present. 
Also there seems to be many
changes taking place around the area.
Many of the species that I saw in my first couple of weeks (Butterfly Weed,
Black-eyed Susan, and Queen Anne’s Lace) are all either completely done or
quickly finishing up for the year. Other
species such as Tall Ironweed, Rough Blazing Star, and thistles are brilliant
colors across the landscape and are providing a very important food source for
pollinators. This week there was a huge
influx of pollinators, from the monarch butterflies, spicebush swallowtail, many
moth species, as well as bees and insects the area was very popular for pollinators. Especially the species Tall Ironweed and
Rough Blazing star were very popular flowers for pollinating insects. 
This week I was not able to
find the large milkweed insect nymphs that I had been seeing but rather found
another generation of small nymphs still taking advantage of the milkweed
plant. Below is a photo of the
Pennsylvania Leather-wing which is in the family of soldier beetles and is used
as a biological control of corn earworm caterpillars which I found very
interesting. The thistles this week have
also started blooming out in full force which can be seen below. So sadly as this blog comes to an end some
species are ending with me while some are just beginning to emerge, guess you
will have to come and visit to see it firsthand one day!
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Species Identification
Golden Northern Bumble Bee (Bombus fervidus)
Commonly called a bumble bee
this is a somewhat large bee ranging in size from ½ to ¾ inch. It is a very robust and hairy bee with the
head and face mostly black, a black band between the wings running across a
yellow thorax. The abdomen of the bee is
yellow with the tips being just dashed in black. Like many other bees the social structure is
very important in the hive. With this
species (as well as many others) there are worker and drone bees, and one queen
bee. Each year all of the members of the
hive die in the winter with the exception of the queen bee that emerges in the
spring and begins building brood cells and laying eggs. The queen that overwinters will live until
the end of autumn and she will die as one of her daughters takes over (Golden,
2015 & Milne and Milne, 1980).
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Golden Northern Bumble Bee (Bombus fervidus) collecting pollen (K. Bradley 8/14/2016)
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Here the bee is seen feeding
from a tall ironweed which continues to flower and thrive here in Wysong. The Golden Northern Bumble Bees are very good
pollinators and recently have been seen throughout Wysong due to the great
influx of brightly colored flowering plants, mainly the rough blazing star and
continuing with the tall ironweed. So
here they have a great food source but they also are very beneficial to have in
the area for pollination. The worker bees
have open pouches or pollen baskets on their hind legs which they use to
collect pollen grains that they then take back to the colony and are eventually
made into honey, here in the photos you can even see the light colored pollen
attached to the bee (Golden, 2015). So
having pollinators such as this species of bumble bee is very important for the
plants that make up this ecosystem, helping them spread the pollen and thus
increasing the genetic diversity.
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| Golden Northern Bumble Bee (Bombus fervidus) collecting pollen from a slightly different angle (K. Bradley 8/14/2016) |
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Spotted Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum)
Spotted
Joe-Pye Weed is a perennial with large purplish to pink flat topped cluster of
fuzzy and rayless flower heads sitting on top of a deep purple or purple
spotted stem (if you looks closely at the photo you can actually see some of
the purple spots). The leaves are very
distinguishing with whorls of 3-5, coarsely toothed, and the leaves have a
single main vein which tapers to the base.
It can grow up to 6 ½ feet but here in Wysong is only about 4 feet
tall. They flower from July to August
and here some are just beginning to flower out while others are finishing up
(Newcomb, 1977 & Thieret et al., 2001).
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Spotted
Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum) with the large pinkish cluster of flowers (K. Bradley 8/14/2016)
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Spotted
Joe-Pye Weed prefers deep meadows, thickets, and shoreline, which makes it
perfectly adapted here in Wysong with the high water table and old lake
shore. It is also very well adapted with
a root system that is fibrous and rhizomatous allowing it to quickly form a
small colony. Here in Wysong there is a
large colony in one specific area of the field indicating to me that it is a
very moist and rich, as Spotted Joe-Pye Weed is normally found in high quality
areas rather than degraded habitats or a habitat with frequent disturbance (Spotted,
2016). Historically Native Americans
used this plant to help cure fevers and early settlers used it to help treat
outbreaks of typhus.
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Spotted
Joe-Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum) with the purple spots on the stem and whorled leaf arrangement (K. Bradley 8/14/2016)
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Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus)
Also
known as green clouded swallowtail this is a large butterfly with a wingspan of
4-5 inches. The wings themselves are
dark with yellow to pale marks along the margins of the wing. The males have greenish iridescent wash over
outer ½ of the hind wing and the female has the same but blueish instead of
greenish. The caterpillar of spicebush
swallowtail is green with orange-red head, large eyespots located on the
thorax, a pair of yellow ovals on the first abdominal segment, and yellow
stripes along the side, with orange on the belly side (Milne & Milne,
1980).
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Spicebush
Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) feeding on tall ironweed in Wysong (K. Bradley 8/14/2016)
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The
most common food sources for this swallowtail is foliage of spicebush,
sassafras, sweet bay, prickly ash, as well as many other plants (Milne &
Milne, 1980). Here in Wysong it was seen
feeding from tall ironweed which this week has shown to be a very important
food source for pollinators. The life
history of spicebush swallowtails is a bit interesting in the fact that the males
patrol the woods, fields, and edges to find receptive females in which the
females then lay a single egg on the underside of the host plant leaves. When the caterpillars emerge they live in the
shelters of leaves that are folded over and come out in the evenings to
feed. Also there are two generations of
swallowtails in the north and then once they migrate there are three
generations in the south as they fly normally from mid-spring to August
(Butterflies, 2016 & Milne & Milne, 1980).
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| Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus) feeding on a thistle (Photo Credit: Mike Newton) |
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Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis)
Canada
goldenrod is a member of the sunflower family and is a native, warm season
perennial that can spread by rhizomes and can form large dense clusters
reaching 1-7 feet tall. Here in Wysong
there are many different types of goldenrod but Canada Goldenrod as of right
now is the first one to bloom out, thus making it easier to identify. The stems are smooth near the base and as you
move up the stem become covered with small hairs or downy. The leaves are narrow and lance shaped and
sharply toothed with three veins, two of which are very prominent and run
parallel to the midrib. The flower heads
themselves are very small, only about 1/8 inch long and come out in a curved,
one sided cluster but when looked at from a distance look as if they are forming
a large terminal cluster. Canada
goldenrod usually blooms from July to October which makes sense here in Wysong
where it is one of the first goldenrods to open up but I think that in just a
few weeks the entire old field will be coated in varying shades of yellow
(Newcomb, 1977 & Pavek, 2012).
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Canada
Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) (K. Bradley 8/14/2016)
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Canada goldenrod is very common throughout most
of North America and is normally adapted to field and a roadside so it can grow
in full sun or partial shade and it prefers moist soil. Here in Wysong the area it is most commonly
found is right along the trail edge.
According to Pavek (2012) all of the Solidago
species are very important nectar and pollen sources for bees and other
insects especially in the late summer and early fall as many other flowering
plants are not around. It can also be
grazed by cattle, sheep, and deer, as well as historically was used by many
Native American tribes as a medicinal plant.
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Canada
Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) displaying its characteristic curved one sided cluster and 1/8 inch flowers.
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Response Question
Climate change is one of the hottest
buzz words in today’s society with many people starting to realize the large
scale implications it will have on the world around us. From rising temperatures, sea level rises,
and so much more climate change will ultimately affect every place on
earth. Countless research is now being
conducted on how these changes will affect the natural world with a consensus
on increasing amounts of precipitation, increased droughts, and rising
temperatures (Botanic, 2016). With all
of that large scale research what does that mean for a small old field in
northern Indiana?
In Wysong there are two
distinct areas that intermingle, one of which is a more sandy dry soil while
the other is a moist soil due to the historic lake bed that touches one side of
the loop. When thinking about how
climate change might affect the system it is important to remember many of the
natural history of the plants and animal species that I have observed over the
past six weeks.
Some of the plants that are adapted
for dry conditions will probably do alright with the rising temperature changes
as they are already adapted for these dry conditions (long root systems, waxy
leaves, etc.). The only possible problem
might be the long drought times in which some of the plants will not be able to
store enough water to get them through long periods of drought. On the other side of the spectrum if there is
an increase in rainfall the water tolerant plants would be better adapted. So it really just is very dependent on the
climate assessing both the temperature and rainfall is very important.
It is also important to keep
in mind that some of the native plants might have to shift their ranges further
north or higher in elevation to combat the climate change which for some might
not even be possible. Some species of
plants require specific germination temperatures and moisture levels which have
to be met to continue reproduction. This
range shifting would obviously be easier if you were an animal but some plants
depending on their seed dispersal might be able to thrive. The other important point to consider is
invasive plants being better adapted to the changing climatic conditions compared
to some of the natives.
So overall it really just
depends on the environmental factors (precipitation and temperature) and how
well adapted the plants and animals are to the change of environment as well as
how slowly or quickly the changes take place. I also wanted to make note that this is the last blog post but not due to climate change but rather a change of classes for me. I just want to end with a great quote about climate change!
Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are- rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call global challenges, which require global solidarity. (Ban Ki-moon)
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Creative Contribution
For this week for my creative
contribution I put together various plants that I have been collected even from
the first week of observations. I
pressed each of the plants out and then arranged them in a very creative way
trying to show the vast diversity that is in Wysong. This is by no means every species; I wouldn’t
have space for them all but rather some of the common ones trying to include
grasses and wildflowers.
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A Snapshot of Wysong Meadow
Flora (K. Bradley)
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Citations
Botanic
Gardens Conservation International. (2016). Climate
change and plants. Retrieved August 19, 2016 from https://www.bgci.org/policy/climate-change-and-plants/
Butterflies
and Moths of North America. (2016). Attributes
of Papilio trolius. Retrieved August 16, 2016 from http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Papilio-troilus
Golden
Northern Bumble Bee. (2015). Insect identification for the casual observer.
Retrieved August 15, 2016 from http://www.insectidentification.org/insect-description.asp?identification=Golden-Northern-Bumble-Bee
Milne,
L., & Milne, M. (1980) National
Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects and Spiders. New York, NY:
Chanticleer Press.
Newcomb,
Lawrence. (1977). Wildflower Guide.
New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.
Pavek, P.
(2012) NRCS Plant Fact Sheet: Solidago canadensis).
Retrieved August 18, 2016 from http://plants.usda.gov/factsheet/pdf/fs_soca6.pdf
Spotted Joe-Pye
Weed. (2016). Illinois Wildflowers. Retrieved August 16, 2016 from http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/wetland/plants/sp_joepye.htm
Thieret, J. W.,
Niering, W. A., & Olmstead, N. C. (Eds.). (2001). National Audubon Society Field Guide to Wildflowers Eastern Region.
New York, NY: Chanticleer Press.
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