Project:

Duckweed Genotyping

Students:

Vita Kirschtein, Nicolas Smulansky, Demarie Hao

Institution:

Stuyvesant and Hunter College High Schools, Manhattan

Mentors:

Theodore Muth

Abstract:

Duckweed has the potential to serve a vital role in many ecosystems around New York City because it is useful for many purposes, such as providing a source of food for ducks and koi, as well as acting as a source of shade for reptiles and amphibians in the aquatic habitat (National Parks Service, 2018). Furthermore, it provides a surface upon which dragonflies and damselflies can lay their eggs. The uses of duckweed range far beyond just animals, as the benefits of duckweed as an energy source, potential uses in pharmaceuticals, and in the production of vaccines (Acosta, et al., 2021). Therefore, because of duckweed’s many practical uses for humans and roles in the ecosystem, it would be helpful to develop a method of barcoding and identifying duckweed species in the environment in order to track its population. Our proposal aims to use primers based on duckweed rbcL sequences in order to create a system of identification for duckweed environmental DNA (eDNA).

Poster:

Team samples: