Newsletter title

September 2013

In This Edition

Annual Docent Appreciation Luncheon

—Anita Springer

Wow! What happened to summer? We are inviting all our past and present docents to the annual Docent recognition luncheon.

It is once again time to get together to share our stories, receive a pat on the back, have a great lunch from Bad Brad’s and hear another one of Harvey’s great stories of the Osage. The date for this wonderful soiree is on Saturday, September 28. This is a standing invitation for all retired docents as well as the current docents and feel free to bring a guest. This is a special year as it is the 20th anniversary of the bison release and the birth of the docent program. If you are hiking, please gather at the bunkhouse at 9:30 am and wear appropriate footwear as the hike is described as moderate. Bring plenty of bug spray. Lunch will be served beginning at 11:30 a.m. and conclude when we all run out of stories to tell. Please RSVP to me by email (ams.springer@gmail.com) or mobile ’phone (918-214-6672) or by ’phone to Kay Krebbs (918-855-7189).

This Fall is going to be very busy at the preserve with a Fall Hike scheduled for October 5 and the 20 year anniversary celebration of the first bison release is on Friday, October 18. Docent Day at Roundup is scheduled for Saturday, November 2.

Please take the time to look at your schedule and the docent work schedule for September–December and sign up.

Prairie Road Crew: September 21

—Dennis Bires

All Tallgrass Prairie Docents and friends are encouraged to participate in this fall’s roadside clean-up on Saturday, September 21, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. We will drive and walk the Preserve roads under the blue autumn sky, making the prairie views even prettier, removing litter. Relaxing on the Bunkhouse porch at lunchtime is another enjoyable part of the day. Bring rugged shoes, water bottle, and lunch for this worthwhile project.

Fall Painting Work Day: October 12

—Dennis Bires

Our Tallgrass Spring Painting Work Day was such a good time this year there has been lots of Docent demand for a Fall repeat event. Bob Hamilton and I have relented, and we are planning a cattle-guard-and-sign-post painting day for Saturday, October 12, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., with a one-hour break for lunch at noon. That happens to be just days before the 20th Anniversary of the 1993 Bison Release, to be observed the following Friday. Expect lots of comments at that commemoration about cattle guards and sign posts.

Assemble at the Visitor’s Center, wear clothes and shoes that you don’t mind having smudged with Rancho Red paint, bring along some lunch, and we will provide the rest. If there is a better place to spend a splendid October day than next to the waving tallgrass, we don’t know what it is, so join us for a rewarding project.

Prairie Watching: Insect-Plant Relationships

—Dwight Thomas, Ph.D.

Many of my photographs of plants are also photographs of insects and other creatures that visit those plants. Some of the plant visitors, such as butterflies, are easily noticed, but often I am not even aware of the visitors until I look closely at the photographs. They may be small or they may blend in with the plant. Sometimes, I can easily see the relationships between the insects and the plants, but in other cases, my curiosity is raised, and it takes some research to find out what is going on. Questions arise: What benefits do the visitors get? What benefits do the plants get? Is the relationship detrimental to either party? How specific is the relationship?

Crecopia Moth Caterpillar

Let’s look at some examples:

In the photograph of the Crecopia Moth Caterpillar on a stem, the visiting caterpillar is busy devouring leaf, leaving behind a bare stem. This relationship appears to be a one-way relationship with the plant providing food for the visitor. This is common because plants are usually the basis of any food chain. This scene looks like just a simple food chain relationship. If the plant loses too much of its material, the relationship could be severely detrimental to the plant, but there are potential benefits from this kind of relationship. One benefit would be spreading the plant’s seeds; seeds that stick to the visitor are carried away, or those that are ingested are eliminated unharmed by the visitor.

Hummingbird Moth and the Purple Milkweed

In the photograph of the Hummingbird Moth and the Purple Milkweed, we see the moth sucking nectar from the flowers. The moth is getting food, but there is no harm to the plant. Nectar is not produced by the plant for its own direct benefit, so it seems that the plant incurs no harm. In fact nectar is likely produced to entice such visitors as the moth to do the cross-pollination work. Since the part of the plant that is involved is the flower, the moth may come in contact with the flower’s reproductive parts and carry pollen away or deposit pollen from another flower that it has previously visited.

Swallowtail Butterfly on Butterfly Milkweed

In the photographs of the Swallowtail Butterfly on the Butterfly Milkweed, and the Monarch Butterfly on the Blue Sage, we see a similar mutually beneficial relationship &msash; food chain plus pollination.

Monarch Butterfly on Blue Sage

In the photograph of the Honey Bee and the Basketflower, the Bee has to dig into the flower to get to the nectar, and can become covered with pollen that it can transfer to another flower. Likely the plant is not harmed much by the digging. Both benefit from the visit.

Honey Bee on Basketflower

Similarly, in the photograph of the Metallic Green Bee and the Green Milkweed, the bee has to dig into the flower to get to the nectar and stands a good chance of transferring pollen. Milkweed flowers are especially designed so that its pollinators have to know what they are doing. Both the plants and the insects have just the right tools that are needed to accomplish their goals.

Metallic Green Bee on Green Milkweed

In the photograph of the Red Milkweed Beetle on the Green Milkweed leaf, we see only the Beetle sitting on the leaf. We see no damage or activity, but now let’s hear the rest of the story.

Red Milkweed Beetle on Green Milkweed

The Red Milkweed Beetle lays its eggs on the milkweed plant stems at the soil level. The larvae feed on the roots and overwinter there. The adults emerge in the spring and feed on the leaves of the milkweed plant. The Beetle’s whole life cycle is spent on the milkweed plant. I does not appear that the plant benefits from the relationship, but the beetles do. They can even avoid being eaten by birds, in spite of being very visible (red on a green background), because they absorb toxins from the milkweed plant that are poisonous to birds. Similarly, in the photograph of the Milkweed Bugs on the Green Milkweed flower, the mating bugs are using the plant for shelter, but they also feed on the milkweed plant and are very specific to the species of milkweed plant.

Milkweed Bugs on Green Milkweed

As I continue to watch the prairie, it continues to teach me. I find it fascinating that plants and insects have evolved together to be able to fit into natural and often mutually beneficial relationships.

Docent Coverage Of Season Days

—Andrew Donovan-Shead

Docent Coverage of Season Days Docent Coverage of Season Days Summary

Other Places to Visit

Here we provide some links to other places worth visiting.

Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Visitor’s Center Latitude & Longitude

Here is the latitude and longitude of the Visitor’s Center that you can give to visitors for entry into their GPS navigation device.

Kiosk Maintenance

The manufacturer’s instructions for cleaning the touch-screen recommend use of a soft dry cloth only. This proved inadequate for smeared fingerprints. Soft-paper kitchen towels work well, slightly damp with a small drop of soft handsoap. Application of a dry kichen towel removes any residual moisture.

Over time, a matter of several weeks continuous operation, I have noticed that calibration of the touch-screen drifts away from the initial set-point. If you notice that the cursor isn’t under your finger when you touch the screen then restart the kiosk by unplugging it from the wall, waiting a few moments and then re-inserting the power plug. It will restart and recalibrate.

This link points to the complete Kiosk Maintenance Manual.

Back Issues

Some printed back issues of the Docent Newsletter, to February 2009, can be found in the two green and one blue-black zip-binders, stored in the Perspex rack by the file cabinet in the office of the Visitor’s Center.

All back issues are available electronically via the links shown below. All newsletters prior to December 2007 are available in Portable Document Format (PDF), which means that you will need Adobe Reader installed on your computer to read these files. All newsletters from December 2007 onwards are in HTML format that is easily read using your web-browser.

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Selected Topics Index

This persistent index of selected topics should make finding articles of interest easier. The list will grow as I move further into the past and it will grow as I add interesting topics from each new newsletter. Iris McPherson lent me the paper copies of the newsletter from the very early years of the docent program; I ran them through a scanner equipped with a document feeder, saving them as PDF files, then added them to Back Issues section above. Let me know of any dead links that you discover. Also, please lend me any paper copies of the newsletter that are missing so that I can scan and add them to the list of back issues.

Newsletter Publication

Deadline for submission of articles for inclusion in the newsletter is the 10th of each month. Publication date is on the 15th. All docents, Nature Conservancy staff, university scientists, philosophers, and historians are welcome to submit articles and pictures about the various preserves in Oklahoma, but of course the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in particular.