Field Season 2022 had graduate and undergraduate lab members (Kate, Taylor, Sarah) returning to Central Texas at the start of May for sampling pollinator diversity of Trio. After driving 15 hours through weather that felt like an act of god, they were greeted with an incredible study site at Stengl Lost Pines (UT Austin) where Triodanis was in abundance. As the heat of each day broke (it’s not the heat that gets you it’s the humidity) and field work ended for that afternoon, evenings were spent cooking dinner and enjoying the bird diversity that area of Texas provides. Sampling moved northward from there to the Dallas Fort Worth area where we met with a frequent collaborator, Kim Sasan. Fieldwork was also done in the lovely Flint Hills of Konza prairie and a military installation in Missouri with a homebase at Ozark Research Field Station (Missouri S&T) and finally wrapped in mid-June back in Southern Illinois
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above left: Kate T. & Sarah L. performing pollinator observations; above right: Taylor S. & Sarah L. doing pollinator surveys.
This year the whole lab went to Anchorage, AK to showcase their work at the Botanical Society of America’s annual conference. #TeamTrio was represented in two different poster sections (Biogeography and Pollination) with undergrads and grad students presenting work. Field trips out into the mountains surrounding Anchorage with academics and professionals from around the world, making new friends or catching up with old ones, enjoying bluebird days under the midnight sun, and many ice cream runs were some of the other highlights.
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above left: the whole lab took a rainy, but fun trip to the Alaska Botanical Garden (Julia B., Morgan L., Sarah L., Jenn W., Taylor S., Kate T.; above right: fantastic lab pic t the conference center, check out those mountains!