This July has been full of bees! In between seed collecting, we’ve been keeping busy doing more bumble bee atlasing. I mentioned it briefly in my last blog post, but to go into a little more detail the Great Plains Bumble bee Atlas is a citizen science project organized by the Xerces society to gather data on the species distribution of bumble bees (genus Bombus) to identify conservation needs. The Xerces society has bumble bee atlases active all across the country (minus the south central and southeastern US (for now!)), however the Great Plains atlas specifically includes North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas. To conduct the survey, you catch bees making note of the flower they were on, chill them in a cooler to slow them down, then photograph and re-release them when you found them. It’s pretty fun, sometimes finding bumble bees is the hardest part, especially in areas where they have to compete with honeybees over nectar resources.

Mid July we traveled northeast to the Sheyenne district of DPG to get a look at the Western prairie fringed orchid (Platanthera praeclara). These orchids are found in tallgrass prairies in wet, disturbed areas such as ditches, and are pollinated by hawk months. However, this species is threatened mainly due to habitat loss from agriculture or from competition with the noxious weed Leafy spurge (Euphorbia virgata). While spurge is a problem down on the Grand River district, it’s quite abundant in the Sheyenne district and down-right HORRIBLE.

Plants and bees aren’t the only things we’re working with, we are also getting to help with a swift fox survey. Swift fox (Vulpes velox) are considered threatened in the state of South Dakota, so we are setting up trail cams until deer hunting season starts to see if these fox occur on the grassland. They prefer short grasses i.e. grazed pastures, and while none have shown up yet, we’ve caught photos of raccoons, badgers, and even some songbirds.

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Jenna

Dakota Prairie Grassland, SD