by BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – On a remote tallgrass prairie in North Dakota, a secret orchid rises from the ground. You will only find it if you know where to look.
The bright white flowers of the western fringed orchid have fascinated fans trying to catch a glimpse—and as a threatened species protected by the federal Endangered Species Act, it’s also a question for researchers trying to learn more about orchids. reproduction and role in its ecosystem.
The orchid is endangered due to the loss of its native prairie habitat. About 60% of native orchids in the US and Canada are rapidly disappearing due to climate change, habitat loss and pollinator decline, said Julianne McGuinness, program development coordinator for the North American Orchid Conservation Center. Those showy flowering plants that are admired for their beauty can be an early indicator of the decline that is going unnoticed in their environment.
“They are like canaries in the coal mine for the rest of our ecosystems,” McGuinness said.
Graduate students from North Dakota State University in Fargo hope to learn more about the pollinators and reproduction of the western fringed orchid. Their work includes logging the GPS coordinates of orchids at 20 different sites in Minnesota, North Dakota and Manitoba, Canada, swimming orchids for tiny amounts of insect genetic material, and attracting pollinating insects at night with black lights and sheets.
Years ago, Steve Travers, an associate professor in the university’s Department of Biological Sciences, was interested in learning about the orchid — “the big, beautiful, beautiful, 2-foot-tall, ginormous, gorgeous things that pollinated at night.”
“I find it hard as hell sometimes,” he said. “And when people see it for the first time, there’s this little bit of breath taking. I mean, it’s so big and it’s amazing.”
The orchid provides a unique insight into the near-extinct ecosystem — the tallgrass prairie — as well as understanding connectivity with pollinators and other plants, and is a good model system for studying rarity, Travers said.
The only known pollinators of the orchid are hawks, large moths that are just the right size and suitable to extract the orchid’s nectar, in long spurs, while also pollinating the plant.
The western marginal orchid is mostly found in reserves, such as the Sheyenne National Grassland in North Dakota and the Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie Preserve. The orchid peaked in mid-July.
Populations can be as small as one plant or as large as 500 to 1,000, Travers said. Once located, the researchers log the GPS coordinates of the individual orchids to an accuracy of 10 centimeters (4 inches) so they can return later. Travers said finding an orchid when it’s not blooming is like looking for a brown stick in a big green field.
Graduate student Josie Pickar’s work is focused on what affects orchid reproductive success, including soil nutrients and pollinator service. She is traveling to around 20 sites, looking at subsets of orchids, collecting soil and moisture content samples, counting flowers, and recording plant height and conditions, as well as monitoring the orchids through trail cameras for what might be eating them. In September, she will go back and count orchid seed capsules, which are extremely difficult to find.
To locate the orchids, the researchers used rough coordinates from land management agencies. They have dealt with many ticks, crossed a beaver dam wearing waders and seen bear tracks in the process.
“It was pretty wild,” Pickar said.
She has put in more than 12-hour days, visiting around two orchid sites a day that can be up to three hours away – her staff wearing gear like long trousers , long-sleeve shirts, hats and sometimes mosquito-repelling head nets. She called the orchid “almost alien when you see it out on the prairie.”
Trinity graduate student Atkins, who was out from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m., is looking at orchid pollination networks: the pollinators that visit the orchid and the other plants they also visit.
She swabs the orchids at all their locations, collects moths to see where they go and uses a molecular technique called eDNA metamorphism to see which pollinators have visited the orchid, she said. Environmental DNA is genetic material left behind by, for example, a butterfly visiting a flower. Some studies suggest that daytime pollinators may be at work, she said.
Studying orchid pollinators requires work at all hours of the day.
In the morning, Atkins would swab orchids for eDNA before degrading. In the afternoon, she would survey other nearby plants that might be attracting pollinators. And at night, she would shine a black light at prairie locations, collecting moths and taking measurements.
Travers said the research is important from a biodiversity perspective, where rare species are integral to their contribution to the ecosystem.
Although orchids are found all over the world, the western fringed orchid is specifically adapted to the tallgrass prairie, he said.
“It’s very interesting to me that you get all this diversity in the genus and then, boom, it comes here and turns into this huge, night-pollinated thing, and I’d love to know why. Why did that happen? But that’s a whole other question,” said Travers.
