Project:

Assessing Biodiversity in the Suburban Ant Colony

Students:

Anne-Sarah Nichitiu, Xinran (Annie) Cao, Marc Nichitiu

School:

The Stony Brook School, Suffolk

Mentors:

Erol Altug

Abstract:

The ants are the among the most ignored experiences of biodiversity. Despite their profound ecological impact on the environment, they are modest in size. Given their abundance, diversity, and their small morphological differences ants are an ideal subject for barcoding, since the process allows the non-specialists to correctly identify them, and subsequently map them. Too often categorized as pests in the suburban areas, ants are subjected to insecticides that affect their survival. Thus, through our ant campaign we first intend to study the patterns of ants distribution on the varied areas of our school grounds and private gardens from gardens, pavements, residential buildings to forested areas. The variety of the ants will be assessed both in terms of species and in terms of functional groups. We also aim to investigate the correlation of their variety with the use of insecticides.

Poster:

Team samples: