where the buffalo roam

I'm in Jackson, Wyoming. Actually in the Teton Co. Public Library. Camping in the Grand Teton National Forest and I'm quickly running out of internet time.

My digital camera needs servicing at Olympus because Moab dust got in the lens so I have no new photos.

I'll post more tomorrow.

There are herds of buffalo grazing by the campsite. How cool!!

Eau de desert

We sniff flowers out here in Moab. Just about anywhere we go, members of the Raguso lab have their noses in flowers, trying to identify an odor. The flowers here in Moab are delicious. The evening primroses that we study have a few different odors or chemytopes. We are able to do chemical analysis of the odors because we are able to do high speed gas-chromatography in the field. The device we use is called a zNose and we are able to analyze the chemicals in our floral odors in less than a minute per sample. The three chemotypes of the tufted evening primrose emit odors that smell of roses, gin, and earl grey tea or Trix cereal (depending on your nose). The odors are spectacular and delicious.

Our flowers are not the only spectacular smelling plants in the desert. I am particularly fond of two very different plants here in the desert. First is the prickly pear (Opuntia polyacantha). (I think that is the species name). Three separate noses have said "mmmm.....watermelon" when sniffing this uninviting plant. The spines are long and offer good protection for this succulent cactus If you are ever out in the desert in the southwest or see one of these in the greenhouse, sniff it. The odor is much stronger at dusk than any other time and it is spectacular. This cactus is polymorphic for flower color so there is a fuschia variety that I have seen around Moab. I haven't sniffed it yet. It would be interesting to see if the pink flower smells the same as the yellow blossom.

The second plant that I have a fondness for is the sand-verbena (Abronia fragrans).

These white umbels smell like fun dip, cotton candy, and pixie stix. They are also an evening blooming flower so they smell best when the sun sets and the moon rises over the canyon walls.

I went to Arches National Park at the end of last week and took photos but my camera battery is currently charging on the wall here at the Moab public library. The joys of no running water and no electricity include charging electronic devices at cafes, restaurants and public libraries.

I'm heading to Jackson, Wyoming within the next week. Who knows, my next post may be in the midst of bison and snow in lieu of lizards and the desert sun.

desert dust

I've been in Moab, Utah for five days now. One shower and five dusty nights' sleep later I am adjusting to life in the field.


I left Ithaca, NY early Sunday morning with Rob Raguso (my advisor). I brought a daypack, a backpack, and a duffle bag with my tent, sleeping bag, and thermarest. We flew out of Ithaca to Philly to Denver to Grand Junction, Colorado. The flight from Denver to Grand Junction was amazing because we were in a small plane flying low over the Rockies. We flew across the country to study a native wildflower, the evening primrose (Oenothera caespitosa).


I have never been to western Colorado or Utah. Rob and I were picked up from the airport by Holly, a graduate student in the lab. The drive from Grand Junction to Moab was incredible. We drove past signs for Dinosaur National Monument, past Castle Rock, and along the Colorado River to ourcampsite. Along the way I was lucky enough to spot a female pronghorn (Antilocapra americana).













This photo is a bit upriver from our campsite. You can see the la Sal mountains in the background. This road is Highway 128 and it takes you into Moab. Arches National Park is a fifteen minute drive away.


We met up with the rest of the team, said our hellos, and caught up on recent events. We have a large crew: two undergrads (me and Jay), a recent college graduate (Annie), an graduate student (Holly) and two post-docs (Derek and Cristian), a P. I. (Rob), and a visiting scientist (Krissa Skogen).


Jay, Annie, Derek and Cristian have been in Moab since mid-April. Jay is a student at Colorado College and Annie graduated from the University of South Carolina a year ago and was a member of the Raguso lab as an undergrad at USC.


O. caespitosa is a night-blooming plant. We observe the plants in the early morning and in the evening. There are two subspecies of caespitosa found in Moab: O.c. navajoensis and O.c. marginata. We just found O.c. marginata this field season. O.c. navajoensis is found on roadsides and in disturbed areas so our focal populations are off the side of H-128 and some dirt roads going into canyons.

This is a picture of Annie doing observations out at one of our field sites.





The wildlife out here is incredible. Our flowers are visited by bees(Xylocopa sp., Anthophora sp., and Lasioglossum sp.) and a hawkmoth species (Hyles lineata). On a side note, I watched a mutillid meander in front of my feet two mornings ago and there are raphidids everywhere when the evenings are hot.

Rob left this morning and the weather is awful. It was a hundred earlier in the week and now it is in the fifties and raining. I was able to run up in the la Sal mountains earlier in the week and we're going to try to get to Arches National Park this afternoon if it lets up and I'll try to get in a run there too.





It's time to get back to work to get ready for tonight. Here's one last photo of a rainbow from Wednesday night. Views like this make living in a tent with no running water in the desert worth it.