Project:

The South East Collection of Macroinvertebrates in Argyle Lake

Students:

Ashley Burke, Philippa Pascale, Jackson Esposito, Drew Scheriff

School:

Babylon Junior-Senior HS, Suffolk

Mentors:

Claire Donaldson

Abstract:

Macroinvertebrate obtained from Argyle Lake are being collected in this project. It is important to obtain the macroinvertebrates DNA because accounting for all these organisms allows us to be able to study environmental patterns across the years, trends in macroinvertebrates and possibly discover new organisms that have not been barcoded yet. In this project, macroinvertebrates will be found and sequenced to see if they have been classified. Organisms found in Southeast Argyle Lake, by the playground, were collected and will be barcoded. To barcode them, the organisms will be froze, then the DNA will be extracted from them using enzymes. After the DNA is extracted, using a thermocycler, the specific “CO1 gene” will be replicated. This process is called Polymer Chain Reaction. After this, the CO1 gene will be sequenced for about 500-750 base pairs. The sequence will be put into the computer to see if the organisms CO1 gene matches any other organisms CO1 gene.

Poster:

Team samples: