South Dakota Trip (Aberdeen) - Spring 2025
🔥 Low 90s, 25 mph winds. Hot, dry, and windy. Wind kept the mosquitos away!
Eric, Aden, and I left Bozeman at 6 AM on Monday, May 12 - driving through Eastern Montana to Aberdeen, SD. On Tuesday morning, we left Aberdeen and headed North to the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
Sand Lake
Rhinusa pilosa Monitoring Grids
Site activities:
- Setup exclosure and control grid
- Build exclosure
- Retrieve weather data from data loggers
- Setup trail cameras to monitor herbivory
Mecinus janthinus Cage & Release
After completing the exclosure and control grids, we drove down to another section of the Sand Lake NWR to set up a Mecinus janthinus release cage and release M. janthinus biocontrol agents.
Site activities:
- Build release cage ontop of existing monitoring transect
- Release M. janthinus biocontrol agents in cage and in open release transect
- Retrieve weather data from data loggers
Schaunaman Ranch
After completing work at Sand Lake, we headed back to Aberdeen to visit our other site - the Schaunaman Ranch just outside of town. Thank you to Kirk and Craig Schaunaman for allowing us to access their land and set up our experiments.
Rhinusa pilosa Monitoring Grids
Site activities:
- Build exclosure around existing monitoring grid
- Retrieve weather data from data loggers
- Setup trail cameras at both the exclosure and control grid
M. janthinus Cage & Release
