Hello! My name is Cheska Hrupcin and I am interning with the Brosi Lab (University of Washington) at RMBL (Rocky Moutain Biological Laboratory) in Gothic (Crested Butte), Colorado!

This week I worked alongside my mentor, Chris Anderson, (a Harvard grad currently working to get his PhD!), and another grad student to begin data collection. Chris’s project is finding out how a diversity of pollinator visits affects the seed production in different plant species (This week we worked with Potentilla pulcherrima and Delphinium nuttallianum). Currently, Chris has three ideas of what the distribution could look like with the completed data, linear (very unlikely), bell-shaped, or an exponential graph that flattens out at a certain point.

To start the process of data collection we hiked up to our site, AP (Avery Picnic) with Pollinopticon camera trap systems, insect nets, flower bags, jeweler tags, stakes/camera mounts, plant cages, and flags. Then we spent about an hour setting up. We used small bags to cover certain flowers that had not opened yet (this ensured there were no unsupervised pollination events). We then hammered stakes into the ground about six inches away from the plant, these were used to mount our camera systems, using hose clamps. Once all of the flowers were bagged, labeled, and had a camera pointing at them, it was time to begin data collection. We used a schedule similar to this,

This was used to ensure we captured data on each flower right when it opened. We would then take the bag off of the flower and let the cameras do their thing.

Another key component was to create an area that had a higher concentration of pollinators. We used a small tent with an open bottom (named the “Thunderdome”) to enclose flowers and insects to increase the number of pollination events. We would use butterfly nets and viles to capture pollinators and put them into the tent

Four out of the five days of this week were focused on fieldwork in order to collect as much data as possible, Friday was a lab day, meaning we worked to organize the space, compute data, and preserve samples. I got to learn from another Brosi team how to capture, identify, and preserve data. I was also lucky enough to be a part of a pinning lesson and helped the other team pin some of their insects!

I spent a lot of time walking through the beautiful town of Crested Butte, hiking on so many great trails, and getting to know my host family. There are so many beautiful sights to see here and to make it even better everything is coated with wildflowers! I am so excited to spend more time here and to continue learning with the help of such knowledgable people!