Diana Pilson University of Nebraska dpilson1@unl.edu

Much of my field work is conducted at the University of Nebraska's Cedar Point Biological Station, Ogallala, Nebraska. Cedar Point lies along Lake Ogallala, just below Kingsley Dam and Lake McConaughy. The station is surrounded by unique ridges and canyons, and is situated very near cultivated sunflower fields. These views of the sunflower plots (the yellow masses are flowers) are from the ridge.

On the ridge above the lower plots, a flat expanse of CPBS houses a larger scale multi-year experiment examining wild sunflower persistence in the seedbank. The site is an excellent area for testing factors affecting wild sunflower populations, as the existing seedbank is quite small. In addition, the site is close to natural populations of wild sunflower and within a few miles of cultivated plants, potential sources of insect herbivores important to the study.

Studies into the evolution of mating systems using Croton texensis are conducted at Arapaho Prairie, a 1,300 acre Nature Conservancy site maintained by CPBS in adjacent Arthur County, Nebraska.

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