If you want to look up the features of our plants, you can do that! Most of the links go to Totally Tomatoes or Seedsavers where we purchase our seeds. You can find photos and expected maturation dates. You can also find printer friendly lists.
Author: Vicki Medland
Pollen Eater
Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) is a beautiful spring ephemeral flower locally common in wet forested areas. Baird Creek in Green Bay offers spectacular views of this flower. This photo of a soft-winged flower beetle called Collops feeding on protein-rich pollen (and perhaps sugary nectar) shows that it’s not only humans that are attracted to this early bloomer.
Pollen is an important food source for many herbivorous organisms that mainly feed on nectar or fruits that are often low in protein. In some Coleoptera pollen provides the nutrients needed to for growth and also to produce eggs.
Soft-winged flower beetles (family Melyridae) are not a particularly well-known group of beetles, despite the fact that over 500 species occur in North America. Many feed on pollen, and although it would seem that this would be deleterious to the plant, the beetles inadvertently transfer pollen between flowers and can be effective pollinators, just like their more famous (and graceful) relatives, such as butterflies.
Both flower and beetle are not only colorful accents in our spring landscape, but they also have roles to play in their ecosystems, and help to support other organisms and increase the biodiversity in our region.
Point au Sauble Bird Sightings
Baseline research at Point au Sauble began in 1999 with funding from an endowment donated by the Fox River Group. Even though Point au Sauble is widely recognized as one of the only remaining wetlands on the east side of Green Bay, little was known about this ecosystem and its biota. Bird banding and surveys are being conducted to understand how birds use the Point during the nesting and migration seasons. Surveys on other vertebrates and invertebrates of Point au Sauble will be conducted during future years to provide a more complete picture of the fauna in this unique area.
Students Nick Walton and Erin Gnass will be conducting surveys this spring and reporting them to the blog. Stay tuned.
Archives from 1999 and 2004 are reported on the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity website.
A complete list of birds seen at Pt. au Sauble is avaliable at the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity.
Welcome to Econotes new home
We have move Econotes to a blog format to make it easier for us to inform you about new entries and also allow you to comment on our notes or even upload your own econotes (after approval) of course. You can add our blog to your RSS feed so you stay up to date on unusual and interesting natural history reports. You can still find the archived econotes at www.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/econotes/.
2010 Heirloom Sale
The NAS Heirloom Plant Sale is an annual sale that raises funds for student research projects in the sciences and for travel funds so that students can attend scientific meetings. The sale is organized and run mostly by volunteers and supported by the Cofrin Center for Biodiversity and the Natural and Applied Sciences Department.
This year the plant sale will be on Saturday, May 15. the doors open at 9 am, but we start handing out numbers at 7:30. That way you can go get breakfast instead of standing in line.
So what will we have for you? Of course there may be problems with germination etc., but we are planning to sell the following this year:
- peppers (sweets, bells, hots, ornamentals, habaneros)
- tomatoes (every color and every size)
- cucumbers
- eggplants
- broccoli (new this year)
- herbs including 4 types of basil, hyssop, stevia, and borage
- lettuces
- 3 or 4 types of flowers
Stay tuned. I plan on providing more information about how we grow the plants, give some gardening tips on heirlooms, and present some of our past awardees.
Birds of Panama
This year we were not studying birds and did not have any ornithologists with us, but we still saw some interesting species. Some highlights include several pretty little hummingbirds including the Black-throated Mango, Long-tailed hermits, and white-necked Jacobans. We saw several hawks, but had a difficult time identifying them. One beautiful one we got a good look at was the Pearl Kite. I had never been to Fortuna and saw 12 new species just sitting on the front porch one morning. One of the cutest was the Rufous-collared sparrow. Feeding with the sparrows were a pair of Lesser Seed-finches and a male Yellow-faced Grassquit. I also saw several flycatchers, including a Yellow-bellied Elaenia. We caught a Yellow warbler and a Ringed Kingfisher in the bat nets at Bocas. We saw a pair of Linneated Woodpeckers and both Yellow and Red-rumped Caciques, and a Fasciated Antwren on Pipeline Road. At BCI we were able to see Crested Guans and a Red-capped Mannikan. We only saw 2 trogons: Slaty-tailed and Violaceous. Of course we saw lots of parrots and both Chestnut-mandibled and Keel-billed toucans, as well as Collared Aracaris. Two birds with great names, the Chacalacas and Bananaquits, were everywhere in Gamboa. In total we were able to identify about 65 species of birds without even looking for them. And I learned that I definiely need to study those large and mid-sized Tyrant Flycatchers.
Vicki
Last day in Panama
Today is our last day in Panama. We will be visiting the canopy crane to get a view from above the trees. In the afternoon we will visit Owen McMillan’s butterflies and then walk down to the Chagres River for one last view. This evening we will hear more about Panama’s primates and then its time to pack up and get a little sleep before we head to the airport at 5 am tomorrow. We should be back by 7:30 pm. At least we hope so!
Next Stop Fortuna
We have had a great time in Bocas del Toro. We found a rare anteater and did a lot of surveys of marine invertebrates. We also recorded several species of bats. And in our spare time were able to do a lot of snorkeling. I’m sure someone willpost photos and more info on the anteater and the other things we saw. Thanks to Gabriel and the staff at the Bocas del Toro lab for their help and to our great boat drivers Sebastian and Eric. Also thanks to Ray Gabriel for his great talk on tarantulas and night time hike. And a huge hug and special thanks to Maurice Thomas, our collaborator on the bat project. We had a great time getting to see the bats up close and to help to create a library of their echo-location calls. There will be a future post about why these recordings are impoprtant. Unfortunately no fishing bats were caught this year, so that will be up to the next year’s class.
We are off to visit the cloud forest at Fortuna in the west central highlands and won’t be able to post for a few days. Mike Draney will be collecting spiders and John Katers will show us the hydro-electric facility. We are told there are no poisonous snakes in the cloud forest, so that is good. Last time we visited we had 10 inches of rain in 1 day. We’ll let you know if the dry season has arrived yet.
Vicki
Bocas Del Toro
We have an exciting trip planned. We are currently in Bocas del Toro on Isla colon at the STRI marine station. Yesterday we visited a cave called La Gruta that is known for its bats. Dr. Maurice Thomas led the tour and then set up mist nets to trap bats in the evening near the station. Maurice also gave a talk about his bat research in the islands and showed some spectacular photos of bats pollinating flowers. We caught several bats in mist nets and recorded their calls. We also set up cameras to try to capture video of wooly opossums.
Today we did a comparison of the sea floor in areas of high disturbance and in relatively pristine areas. We used the glass-bottomed boat to view and identify several kinds of invertebrates. This afternoon we will see if we have any film of the wooly opossums. Tonight we hope to capture fishing bats.
In our spare time we have been snorkeling and watching caimans and frogs. We watched the dolphins in Dolphin Bay.
Tomorrow we will do more comparisons of invertebrates using the glass-bottom boat, try to catch some more bat to record their calls and in the evening we will hear a talk from Ray Gabriel about his tarantula research and maybe go tarantula hunting. We also hope to visit Hospital Point to see some tent-making bats and poison dart frogs.
Updates with photos are coming soon! Everyone is fine, except that 3 of us are without our luggage and have been wearing the same clothes since we got to Panama!
Vicki
Panama in January 2010
Hi,
We are hard at work getting ready for the trip. We have 8 students from UW Green bay and 2 students from St. Norbert College. The instructors for this year include UWGB faculty Mike Draney, John Katers, and myself. Dr. Anindo Choudhury from St. Norbert College will be joining us for the end of the trip in Gamboa. Of course we have lots of help from others especially at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. I especially want to thank the phenomenal administrative staff at STRI including Nilka Tiejeras, Orelis Arosemenas, and director of education Nelida Gomez, to set the itinerary and file the permits we need for our 2010 visit.
We didn’t get quite as many posts as we wanted last year, so this year I’m making posting to the blog mandatory! So expect to see at least one post from everyone during the trip. I will try to post interesting notes and information up until we leave so those that aren’t going also get to meet the people and see some of the places we are going as well. So check back soon.
For more information about the course and its history please visit our website: http://www.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/Panama/index.htm