Project:

Biodiversity of the Peconic

Students:

Adam Nouicer, Max Sbaschnik, Jane Brylewski

School:

Eastport South Manor HS, Suffolk

Mentors:

Robert Bolen

Abstract:

The biodiversity of the Peconic River is critical to the survival of organisms in the river system, Disruptions in food chains and the balance of nutrient consumption can have negative impacts on the ecosystem. There may be a loss of biodiversity as some species are unable to maintain their place in the environment due to competition by invasive organisms and/or a change in food supply. We plan to 1. Use DNA barcoding to identify species and compare them to last year’s species. 2. Identify potentially novel species and/or sequences and submit these sequences to a sequence database for future reference. 3. Identify any invasive species. 4. Determine if any of our specimens might be a carrier of a disease or an indicator of poor ecosystem quality which could affect human health

Poster:

Team samples: