Project:

Comparing Sessile Invertebrate Species Diversity in the Upper and Lower New York Bay

Students:

Cayla Kushner, Dakota Rogers

Institution:

Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Manhattan

Mentors:

Manisha Jalan

Abstract:

The East River is in fact a navigable tidal strait that links Upper New York Bay with Long Island Sound. It is about 16 miles long, 600–4,000 feet wide, and separates Manhattan Island from Brooklyn and Queens. The East River connects with the Hudson River via the Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek at the north end of Manhattan Island. Places such as Roosevelt (formerly Welfare), Wards, Randalls, and Rikers islands are also in the East River. The Upper New York Bay lies at the junction of the East River, a salt water tidal estuary, and the Hudson river, which feeds into the bay. During the early 19th century, the population of New York increased from approximately 60,000 to nearly 4 million inhabitants. Intense human settlement and lack of complementary waste processing infrastructure, as well as increased shipping port activity within New York Harbor (Upper New York Harbor and surrounding ports of New York and New Jersey) supplied excessive organic materials to algae and bacteria,

Poster:

Team samples: