Project:

Analyzing the Diversity of Lichens in Belmont Lake State Park and Sunken Meadow State Park

Students:

Gregory Kowalczyk, Danish Farooq, Michael Steffanetta

School:

Babylon Jr/Sr High School, Suffolk

Mentors:

Andrew Sheltz

Abstract:

The goal of the project is to identify species of lichen that are difficult to tell apart from other lichen. Lichens are commonly known to be difficult to identify with a field guide, unlike other species such as ferns. Lichens are present in in all parts of the world, such as Belmont Lake State Park, and Sunken Meadow State Park. Ten lichens will be sampled from each of these parks. It is projected that the collected lichen will be diverse due to the fact that they are being sampled from different locations. Each sample will be barcoded, where DNA is extracted and then amplified using PCR. Then the sequences of both the rbcL and IST-1 genes will be sent to DNA Subway, where they will be compared to other species in the database. The relationships between the collected lichens will be analyzed using a phylogenetic tree.

Poster:

Team samples: