Recap: Midwest Native Plants Conference 2012

This weekend was a complete rush for me. Finally, after an entire year of waiting, it was time to attend the 2012 Midwest Native Plants Conference. This conference brings together gardeners, naturalists, and scientists from all walks of life for three days to learn about the ecology of native plants and their effects on other wildlife, such as birds and insects. It's a magical time, full of interesting people and lots of knowledge jam packed into the Bergamo Center outside of Dayton, Ohio.

This year's speakers included: Cheryl Harner, who spoke about native plants as habitat; Ian Adams, who wowed us with beautiful pictures of dragonflies and damselflies; Marielle Anzelone, who taught us that there's a lot of botany to find in New York City, and the keynote speaker, David Wagner, the man who literally wrote the book on caterpillars. Not one session went by without multiple gasps of excitement from the crowd--these were top notch speakers. This isn't even mentioning the myriad of breakout sessions available, which covered topics from Pollinators by Jim McCormac to Conifers by David Brandenburg. The organizers behind this conference sure do know how to pick some engaging speakers.

Sitting in a room listening to some smart people speak is all well and good, but at some point, you've gotta get out into the field and search for the stuff the smart people are talking about. Thankfully, the conference featured multiple day trips and night hikes to satiate that need. A wonderful collection of insects were found on these trips, as the following photos show.

Jim McCormac talks about the singing insects to a group of 77 people: the biggest group of people ever had on the night hike!

David Wagner shows off a conehead katydid, careful to watch for its mandibles.

How could it be a successful hike without an assassin bug? This spiny assassin bug (Sinea sp.) was hiding on Eupatorium perfoliatum, also known as boneset.

This Delicate Cycnia (Cycnia tenera) was hiding on milkweed.

It's important to remain vigilant if you're an insect checking out Queen Anne's Lace: sometimes an ambush bug (Phymata sp.) will be waiting for you! They're masters of flower camouflage.

What discussion of camouflage would be complete without including the stick insects? These phasmids are a sight to behold, and you may be surprised at their size. This one isn't even fully grown.

I can't stress enough how beautiful it is to watch a cicada molt. This annual cicada (Tibicen sp.) is showing off its lovely wings--they really do have a blue hue to them immediately after molting. 

What's great about being surrounded by experts is that they'll let you know when you come across something rare. So when we came upon a lemon beauty of a caterpillar, Jim stepped up and told us more about it.

On our first nature walk, we came across a patch of wild blue indigo, Baptisia australis, one of the host plants for the Genista broom moth caterpillar, Uresiphita reversalis. One plant was providing habitat for a dozen of these caterpillars, leading us to conclude that its bright yellow color was a warning to birds that it sequesters toxins. This moth is starting to make inroads into Ohio, as it moves northward. It's probable that this range expansion has been caused by climate change. This species is more southern in distribution, but with the warming north, new habitat has opened up for it. For a more in-depth report of this caterpillar, check out Jim's blog post here.

This is a small snippet of what was happening at the conference. Despite all I've talked about here, the conference really was about plants, not insects. It just happens to be my luck that the insects are so intimately linked to the plants. If you haven't made it out to the conference before, start planning to attend: next year is sure to be even better.

Cedar Bog....well, it's a fen

This weekend placed me in Dayton, Ohio for the Midwest Native Plants Conference. It was beyond spectacular and I was bombarded with new information everywhere I turned. The conference committee was gracious enough to award me with a scholarship to attend the conference, so I tried to squeeze all the information I could out of the three short days the conference took place. The conference was very well-planned and went smoothly, by the end of the weekend I was exhausted. Really though, I would make sure all my weekends were filled with biology like this one if I could.

The conference hosted some amazing speakers, particularly Steve McKee and Jim McCormac. Steve talked about Botanical Detective Work and his adventures with searching for plants in Richland County that haven't been looked for in over 100 years, which lit a fire under me to go explore Washington County some more. It's amazing what can slip under our noses due to simply not paying attention to what's growing (or crawling!). Jim gave a talk about hummingbirds and the ones we're likely to see in Ohio, very neat stuff. There were some beautiful pictures included to boot.

On the last day of the conference, Sunday, everyone split up into small groups to head into the field. My particular group headed to Cedar Bog, south of Urbana, and I lucked out with who else joined the group: Steve and Jim were both there, with Jim leading it, and we also had Cheryl Harner and Nina Harfmann. The group was in very capable hands. Essentially, if we passed by a plant, one of them would know what it was. Needless to say, I was writing down names like crazy.

Now, Cedar Bog is actually a fen. What's the difference? A bog is acidic, low in minerals, and doesn't really drain. A fen, however, is fed by water, neutral or alkaline, and supports more than Sphagnum moss. But, it was called a bog before it was recognized as a fen, so the name sticks.

Anyway! We found a massive amount of plants and animals during our trek, and it was extremely rewarding. It was the best use of a morning I've had in quite a while. By the end of it, I had taken pictures of 59 different species. That's pretty darn good, I'd say. Having said that, it's time for some pictures.

She has all her limbs, it's just a weird angle, don't worry!

 This beauty descended on a single strand of web and hung around long enough for us to get some nice shots of her. It's a female dark fishing spider, Dolomedes tenebrosus. You can tell it's a female from the sheer size of it: males are smaller. Due to their size, they can take out some pretty sizable prey.

This guy's tricky.

 What at first looks (and sounds) like a bumblebee is actually a robber fly, family Asilidae, Laphria species. Robber flies can be quite large and are vicious when they take down their prey. This one is a bee mimic, which is pretty evident, and if you want to know more about its mimicry, head over to Jim's blog: he's written a good summary of it. Robber flies are my favorite example of why it's important to pay attention to insects. You might think it's a common insect at first, but if you look closer, you'll often be surprised. Something I always look at when I hear a loud buzzing sound from an insect is the eyes. A robber fly's eyes will be very different from what you're used to seeing on a bee's body, so that's the quickest way to separate them. This one happened to be at eye level and caught me off guard after I turned away from the fishing spider. I scrambled for my camera and it flew off the leaf, but thankfully it landed on another one nearby. I'm glad I didn't scare him off, especially since I had already let an assassin bug get away from me a few days before, and later this day a tortoise beetle would escape from my lens. You can't win them all, but when you win one of these huge charismatic flies, you feel a bit better.

This is Michigan lily, Lilium michiganense, and just too beautiful to pass up. This picture turned out very well, and it's such a treat to run across a flower as vibrant as this one.

So that's where the Valentine's Day heart comes from.

Our group reached an open area in the fen and was taken aback by the plants and insects we found hanging around in the sun. I saw my first  Elfin Skimmer, Nannothemis bella, darting around, and also these Seepage Dancers, Argia bipunctulata. The dragonflies were much tinier than what I'm used to, which was super cool. Both species are endangered, making Cedar Bog a very important place for the survival of these two species. 

 Female Nannothemis bella, a wasp mimic not only in color, but in movement.

I still have 54 species to cover, so this Midwest Native Plant Society/Cedar Bog story arc will be elaborated upon in future posts, for sure. The diversity of the place is astounding, it still wrinkles my brain. If you haven't been there before, make sure to add it to your list, it's well worth the trip.