Project:

A Bioblitz of Beetles on the Designed Nature Habitat Area on the Friends Academy Campus in Locust Valley, NY

Students:

Jonathan Almendares, Blaise Saad, Isaiah Popoola

School:

Friends Academy, Nassau

Mentors:

Jennifer Newitt

Abstract:

A recently established nature area on the Friends Academy campus has allowed us to investigate the biodiversity of the wasps in the newly found nature habitat. Research shows that wasps prefer to live in hot and dry climates and also tend to build their nest in overhangs such as shrubs, bushes, or trees (Orkin 2022) . This makes the forest school a prime suspect for a high concentration of wasps during the spring to fall. As of right now we are transitioning from summer, where wasps density is at its peak, to fall, which is when wasps slowly start to die off or hibernate, this means that there still is enough time to collect wasps before they start to disappear from the area (Anderson 2022) . In particular, the forest school would be good because there are a lot of trees, shrubs, and bushes which provide good places for nest-building. Also in New York there are over 90 species of wasps, making the area we reside in a great center of biodiversity of wasps (NY Department of Agriculture 2

Poster:

Team samples: