Project:

Barcoding Macroinvertebrates and Larvae in the Peconic Estuary

Students:

Jillian Gmelch, Madison Heaney, Gabriella Cerase

School:

Eastport South Manor Junior-Senior High School, Suffolk

Mentors:

Robert Bolen

Abstract:

We collected dragonfly nymphs, a snail, and aquatic beetles that we can’t positively identify. Dragonfly nymphs are native to the Peconic river. They help the ecosystem by eating mosquitoes. We are planning to use the DNA barcoding results to measure the biodiversity of the organisms we collected compared to the organisms collected in prior years. We will compare the species identified to the species collected in prior years for a comparative result.

Poster:

Team samples: