Project:

Biodiversity of Seaweeds in Coney Island and Salt Marsh Trail Beach Shores

Students:

Bonnie Zhang, Daniela Campos Montes, Jakerah Afreedah, Kristen Greene

School:

High School for Health Professions and Human Services, Manhattan

Mentors:

Rocheli Apilan

Abstract:

Every living organism that makes up the natural world serves a role and contributes to the ecosystems on Earth. And so, seaweeds which are primitive, marine non-flowering marine algae without root, stem and leaves play a major role in balancing our ecosystem. In fact, 70 % of the total oxygen on Earth is produced from seaweed. It also absorbs more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, than the trees do, and thus, endangering seaweeds may lead to global warming. Our investigation focuses on comparing the biodiversity of seaweeds in Coney Island beach, and Salt Marsh Trail beach shores using the DNA barcoding protocols. This will also enable us to find out the correlations between the population of the two locations and biodiversity of seaweeds.

Poster:

Team samples: