BISMARCK, ND — On a remote tallgrass prairie in North Dakota, a mysterious orchid pokes out of the ground. You can only find it if you know where to look.
The showy, bright white flowers of the western fringed orchid are hard to find for enthusiasts hoping to catch a glimpse. And because it’s an endangered species protected by the federal Endangered Species Act, it’s also a mystery to researchers who want to learn more about the orchid’s reproduction and its role in the ecosystem.
The loss of their native prairie habitat has put the orchid at risk. About 60 percent of native orchids in the U.S. and Canada are rapidly disappearing due to climate change, habitat loss and pollinator declines, says Julianne McGuinness, program development coordinator for the North American Orchid Conservation Center. Those showy flowering plants, beloved for their beauty, could be an early indicator of declines that are going unnoticed in their environment.
“They’re kind of the canary in the coal mine for the rest of our ecosystems,” McGuinness said.
Graduate students at North Dakota State University in Fargo hope to learn more about the pollinators and reproduction of the western prairie fringed orchidTheir work involves recording the GPS coordinates of orchids at 20 different locations in Minnesota, North Dakota and Manitoba, Canada, sampling orchids for small amounts of insect genetic material, and attracting pollinating insects at night using blacklights and bedsheets.
Years ago, Steve Travers, an associate professor in the university’s Department of Biological Sciences, was fascinated by the orchid: “these big, beautiful, two-foot-tall, giant, gorgeous things that were pollinated at night.”
“Sometimes I really struggle to find it,” he said. “And when people first see it, there’s almost a quick intake of breath. I mean, it’s so big and it’s just spectacular.”
The orchid offers unique insight into the nearly extinct prairie ecosystem, as well as its connectivity with pollinators and other plants, and is a good model system for studying rarity, Travers said.
The only known pollinators for the orchid are hawk moths, large moths that are just the right size and shape to reach the nectar of the orchid via a long trail and pollinate the plant at the same time.
The western prairie fringed orchid is mainly found in reserves, such as Sheyenne National Grassland in North Dakota and Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie Preserve. The flowering of the orchid was around mid-July.
Populations can be as small as a single plant or as large as 500 to 1,000, Travers said. Once located, researchers record the GPS coordinates of individual orchids to within 10 centimeters (4 inches) so they can return later. Finding the orchid when it’s not blooming is like looking for a brown stick in a big, green field, Travers said.
PhD candidate Josie Pickar’s work focuses on what influences orchid reproductive success, including soil nutrients and pollination services. She has traveled to about 20 locations to look at subgroups of orchids, collect soil samples and moisture content, count flowers and record plant height and condition, and monitor the orchids with trail cameras to see what might be eating them. She will return in September to count the orchid seed pods, which are extremely difficult to find.
To find the orchids, the researchers used rough coordinates provided by land management agencies, encountered an abundance of ticks, crossed a beaver dam wearing waders, and saw bear tracks along the way.
“It was pretty wild,” Pickar said.
She spent 12-hour days, visiting about two orchid sites a day that could be up to three hours away. Her team wore gear like long pants, long-sleeved shirts, hats, and sometimes mosquito-repellent head nets. She called the orchid “almost alien when you see it on the prairie.”
Graduate Trinity Atkins, who was gone from 7am to 2am, studies the orchid’s pollination networks – the pollinators that visit the orchid and what other plants they also visit.
She samples the orchids at each of her sites, collects moths to see where they go and uses a molecular technique called eDNA metabarcoding to see which pollinators visited the orchid, she said. Environmental DNA is genetic material left behind by, say, a butterfly visiting a flower. Some research suggests that pollinators may be at work during the day, she said.
Studying the pollinators of the orchid requires year-round work.
In the morning, Atkins would dust orchids for eDNA before it breaks down. In the afternoon, she would look for other plants nearby that might attract pollinators. And in the evening, she would blacklight prairie sites, collect moths, and take measurements.
Travers said the research is important for biodiversity, with rare species being an essential part of their contribution to the ecosystem.
Orchids are found all over the world, but the western prairie fringed orchid is specifically adapted to the tall grass prairie, he said.
“I actually find it interesting that you get all this variation in the genus and then, boom, it comes here and it turns into this huge, night-pollinated thing, and I’d like to know why. Why did that happen? But that’s a whole other question,” Travers said.