August 2015 – The Summer of Invertebrates

Week Ten

Well, this was officially the last week of my internship! I’m going to continuing helping Lauren out for the next week and a half or so, though!

Lauren was gone all week, Estany and I were on our own for the most part, but we got a lot done and had a lot of fun!

On Monday and Tuesday, we finished pinning all of the bees that we have collected! After next week, we’ll have one more set of samples to pin from the Zumwalt, but as of this week we are completely caught up with all of the samples that we have.

After we finished pinning, the next step was to enter all of the bees into an Excel database. We got all of the data entered on Tuesday, and so far we have collected a total of 11,068 bees! 8282 (53.97% of the total) of those bees are Agapostemon! I mentioned in my previous post that Lauren, Sam, Estany, and I all made a bet about what percentage of out bees were Agapostemon, and it turns out that none of our guesses were even close to the actual percentage. However, my guess was still the closest, so I get a free Blizzard! I guessed 70%. Estany guessed 74.79%. Lauren guessed 80%. And Sam guessed 85%. While we were pinning it definitely felt like there were a lot more Agapostemon than there actually were. Either way, we are all very glad to be done with pinning.

For the rest of the week, Estany and I worked on sorting through pitfall samples. We have both decided that this is by far the smelliest job that we have done all summer. The mixture of invertebrates, dirt, vegetation, ethanol, and leftover antifreeze does not produce the most appealing smell.

20150827_075314 — Here are some examples of pitfall samples. At the top is a sample after being sifted through twice, the other two are samples before being sifted through at all (click to enlarge)

It takes about three hours to sort through one pitfall. We separate out all of the spider and wind scorpions from the pitfalls for Lauren’s research, and we also take out all of the other invertebrates in case somebody wants to use that data in the future. Each sample is sifted three times at least. We put the sample through a sieve initially to remove some of the dirt. Then after picking out all of the invertebrates that we can, we sift it again and look for more. We do that at least one more time, sometimes two more. Doing pitfalls gets very tedious after doing two or three in a day, but it is also really fun and fascinating to find the spiders and wind scorpions.

20150828_110133 — A vial of spiders collected from a pitfall for Boardman (click to enlarge)

20150828_110644 — A vial with two wind scorpions collected from a pitfall from Boardman (click to enlarge)

Overall it was a pretty fun week! We got so much work done and got do some new stuff too. Also I took care of Lauren’s jumping spiders while she was gone this week!

20150828_111254 — One of Lauren’s spiders hiding out in a mass of web and a grasshopper (click to enlarge)

20150828_111135 — Lauren’s other spider (click to enlarge)

Next week, Lauren, Estany, and I will be going back to the Zumwalt for our last set of field work for the summer!

Week Nine

This week was a pretty laid-back week! We mostly worked in the lab, but we also went back out the Zumwalt to pick up pitfalls.

On Monday, we just worked on more pinning. However on Tuesday, Sandy came to the lab and worked on bee identification with us! We had so much fun, and it was really fascinating to learn how to ID some of the most common bees that we collect. To identify bees, we use various keys that are made up of different pairs of statements (called couplets). Identification starts with Couplet 1, and we determine which of the two statements is true of the bee that we are looking at. After choosing the statement that is true of our bee, we are directed to another couplet. This continues until we reach a couplet that ends with a specific genus (some go to species, but the key we were using only went to genus). Since this was pretty much our first time (for Sam, Lauren, and Estany and I) identifying these types of bees, we were practicing using specimens from Sandy’s reference collection. Sandy would give us each a bee without the label, and we would try to key it out. If we got it wrong, Sandy went through the key with us backwards to figure out where we went wrong. It was a really fun experience, and I learned a lot about different characteristics and the anatomy of bees!

20150818_102037 — Example of an Agapostemon under a microscope (click to enlarge)

20150818_101804 — Another bee used during our ID session (click to enlarge)

On Wednesday, Lauren and I went back out the Zumwalt just for the day to collect pitfalls. It was a little bit more of a hassle to hike to the upper plots this time. Instead of carrying all of our equipment with us, we decided to just put the pitfalls from each plot in three separate 2-gallon Ziploc bags, so that we could take them back to Summer Camp and process them there. So after lunch, we processed the three samples from the upper plots. Then on our way out of the preserve, we picked up the rest of the samples. It was extremely smoky again the whole time we were there, which made the hike a little unpleasant, but overall it was a pretty good day! And I fished for more grasshoppers on the way out again!

On Thursday and Friday, we were back in the lab. Lauren is going to be gone all of next week, so she showed me example of how to process pitfall traps (because we only have five pan trap samples left to pin!!!). I am also going to be working on creating an Excel database of all of the bees that we have collected. At this point, all we will be including in terms of ID of the bees is if they are Agapostemon (the green bees) or not. We all made bets about what percent of the bees we have collected are Agapostemon, and the prize for the closest guess is a free Blizzard from Dairy Queen!

Week Eight

This week was pretty busy, but it was really fun! We finally got to go back to the Zumwalt Prairie again!

On Monday and Tuesday, we just worked on more pinning. We worked mostly on our August samples from Boardman and the Umatilla. We are getting so close to being caught up! I also now hold the record for the largest sample pinned in our lab! Last Tuesday, I started pinning a sample collected at plot Degraded 3 at Boardman. There were 555 bees, and of those 555 bees about 430 of them were Agapostemon! Pinning that sample was brutal, but finishing it was a relief!

20150805_145618 — Most of the Agapostemon from Degraded 3 pinned on a foam board before I labeled them (click to enlarge)

On Tuesday night, Lauren, Sam, Estany, and I went to the Umatilla County Fair! We saw so many cute animals, and we got to go to the Dustin Lynch concert too!

On Wednesday morning, Lauren, Sam, and I left for the Zumwalt. It is about a three hour drive to Summer Camp, and we got there at about 10:00 am. Since we have three days each time we go to the Zumwalt, we have a little bit more freedom to spread out all of the work that we need to do. So on Wednesday, Sam and I set out pan traps and pitfalls and hand-netted, and Lauren did her percent cover and native/invasive grass surveys.

Part of the Zumwalt Prairie taken in June 2015 (click to enlarge)

20150812_150900 — Same location taken in August 2015 (click to enlarge)

It is amazing how much drier it is at the Zumwalt now compared to the first time we were there in June (see pictures above). We actually were not allowed to drive to three of our plots because driving is restricted on any unimproved roads because of the extreme fire danger. This means that now we have to hike to at least three of the six plots with all of our equipment in packs.

20150813_174129 — There was a lot of high smoke in the skies making the sun red (click to enlarge)

20150812_194422 — Smoky skies over Summer Camp (click to enlarge)

On Thursday, we did our floral surveys, and we ended up just hiking to all six sites because we did not need much equipment. The floral surveys were much more pleasant this time! We only had to count about a thousand blooms rather the 13,000 blooms that we counted at the Zumwalt in June!

After we finished our work on Thursday, the three of us went to explore Joseph, a little town just southeast of the Zumwalt. We also stopped by Wallowa Lake for a little while!

20150813_130055 — A bee that I found while walking around Joseph (click to enlarge)

20150813_144121 — Wallowa Lake (click to enlarge)

On Friday, we hiked to the plots to collect the pan traps and refill the pitfalls. Sam and I also fished for grasshoppers on our way out of the preserve! There were a ridiculous number of grasshoppers at the Zumwalt this time, and while we were driving on the dirt roads, they all started jumping up around the tires of the Suburban. So naturally, we decided to use the hand nets to catch some of them for Lauren to feed to her pet spiders! Sam caught 12 grasshoppers!

20150814_093601 — Sam fishing for grasshoppers! (click to enlarge)

Overall, we had a pretty good week! It was very pleasant at the Zumwalt, and we had fun staying at Summer Camp and exploring Joseph while we were there!

Week Seven

Yet another busy week! This week we started another set of sampling at the Umatilla and at Boardman.

On Monday and Tuesday, we were at Boardman and Umatilla, respectively, putting out pan traps and opening pitfall traps. We also did vegetation surveys and hand-netting at each site. Sandy, Sam, and I were in the truck this time, doing the relatively easily accessible sites, and Estany and Lauren were the lucky ones who got to ride on the UTV again. Everything we very smoothly, and the weather was very nice compared to some of the previous days. At Boardman, we even thought it was going to start raining on us the whole time; we were extremely grateful for the break in the hot weather! Unfortunately, because it was cooler and windier, hand-netting was not very successful at Boardman or the Umatilla. We did see hardly any bees at any of the sites, but we did see a few elk while we were stopped for lunch!

20150803_114815 — The elk that we saw at Boardman on Monday (click to enlarge)

On Wednesday and Thursday, we went back to Boardman and the Umatilla to collect pan traps and refill pit falls. Sandy was unable to come with us to Boardman on Wednesday, so Sam and I got to drive by ourselves for first time! It was a little bit scary in some areas, but we made it through without any issues! And we also had another elk encounter on our way back to the entrance. We weren’t able to see anything on either side of the truck (the sagebrush was really tall), and we came extremely close to hitting a herd of about 15 elk that ran right in front of the truck while I was driving. That definitely got our blood pumping for a bit!

20150803_132215 — Contrast between the burned and unburned areas at Boardman (click to enlarge)

On Tuesday, after finishing our work at the Umatilla, Sandy came to the lab and we started learning how to identify bumblebees! Sandy gave us each a couple of bees from a reference collection (without the label) to practice identifying with our microscopes. It was a lot of fun, and I learned a lot about the anatomy of bumblebees!

20150805_170546 — A Hunt’s Bumble Bee (Bombus huntii) that I identified (click to enlarge)

Overall, it was a very busy week, but we accomplished a lot and had fun doing it! I took Friday off to go camping in Central Oregon with some friends!

Week Six

I had so much fun this week! Estany and I got to go to Starkey Experimental Forest for a couple of days to help out Sam and Sandy with Sandy’s project. It was a great experience, and we got to tour the facilities there too!

After a day in the lab on Monday, Estany and I left early Tuesday morning to drive to Starkey. It was about a two hour drive, and we only made one wrong turn trying to get there. We met Sam and Sandy up there; both of them had already been at Starkey since Friday morning. Once we got there, Estany and I got settled in the bunk house, and then the four of us got started on our field work. In her project, Sandy is looking at the effects of different types of grazing on bee communities. There are three pastures that she surveys at Starkey: Pasture 2, Pasture 3, and Pasture 5. Within each pasture, there are four different sites where different types of grazing occur: Deer/Elk, Livestock, All, and None. We worked at two out of the three pastures on Tuesday. Sam and Sandy had already set up and collected pan traps at all three pastures, so all that we did while Estany and I were there was hand-netting.

20150728_164338 — Example of a vial with a Targeted Hand-netting sample in it. We label each vial with the type of hand-netting, the site, the date, and the type of bloom that the bees were caught on. (click to enlarge)

20150728_105301 — Part of Meadow Creek that runs through all of the sites at Starkey (click to enlarge)

After we finished our work for the day, one of the graduate students living in the bunk house, Danielle, took us to see the captive elk that live at Starkey. These elk have been hand raised and are used in different studies including ones on elk grazing patterns. Danielle works primarily with mule deer for her research for her Masters; however, she told us that she also helps out with the elk and at the handling facility at Starkey. It was so much fun to go hang out with the elk and see them up so close!

20150728_201604 — Sam, Danielle, and me with two of the captive elk at Starkey (click to enlarge)

20150728_201732 — Me with one of the elk (click to enlarge)

On Wednesday, we went out to Pasture 5 and hand-netted at each site. It is a much longer drive to get to Pasture 5 than it is to get to Pastures 2 and 3, so Sandy usually surveys at Pasture 5 on a different day.

20150728_163634 — One of the bees that I caught while hand-netting at Pasture 5 (click to enlarge)

20150728_130411 — Sandy transferring her samples to clean vials (click to enlarge)

I had so much fun working and hiking around at Starkey! It is an absolutely beautiful area, and I got to work on my hand-netting skills which will help with field work at Lauren’s sites as well.

IMG_20150729_173026 — Sam, Estany, and me at the entrance of Starkey Experimental Forest (click to enlarge)

On Thursday and Friday, we were back in the lab, pinning and packing up vehicles for the field work that we are going to do next week!

Week Five

The past few weeks have been pretty hectic and I have not had a chance to write a post, but I’ve finally got some free time this weekend!

Week Five was pretty uneventful compared to Week Four. We worked in the lab all day on Monday. Sam, Estany, and I continued to work on pinning bees. We are getting so close to being caught up!

On Tuesday, Lauren, Sam, Sandy and I went out to Boardman to pick up the pitfall traps that we opened the week before. No flats this time!! Hooray!!

20150721_104558 — Lauren processing pitfall traps at Boardman (click to enlarge)

On Wednesday, we had a reporter, Gail Wells, and a photographer from OSU come interview us and take pictures while we went to the Umatilla. It was great meeting with Gail, and she and her husband took out to dinner that evening to talk with us some more.

20150717_111459 — Example of a pan trap (white cup) and a pitfall trap at the Umatilla (click to enlarge)

On Thursday, we met with the Experiential Learning Coordinator, Katie Gaebel, to talk about how our internships are going and our experiences here at the station.

After my interview on Thursday, took the rest of the day off and left to go down to Southern Oregon! I spent the weekend camping, eating great food, and spending time with my friends and family.

20150725_074647smaller — Sunrise at camp (click to enlarge)