Project:

Microbiomes within Different Aged Cemeteries

Students:

Dominick Caputo, Jason Rattansingh

School:

William Floyd High School, Suffolk

Mentors:

Victoria D'Ambrosia

Abstract:

Different embalming techniques were used during different time periods, during the Revolutionary war era no embalming technique was used, while in Civil war eras arsenic was used and modern cemeteries use formaldehyde. These fluids can impact both thanatomicrobiomes, the collection of microbes that colonize the internal organs and orifices after death and epinecrotic biomes, which are microbial communities residing or moving along the surface of decomposing remains. The embalming fluids can seep into the microbial communities and cause pollution which then gets into water sources like aquifers. The aims of this project were to determine if there was a variation in the trends of microbes in cemeteries due to embalming techniques and identify primary microbial communities in each cemetery. It was hypothesized that microbial variation will be high between different era cemeteries due to dissimilarities between embalming techniques employed. Results from the analysis conclude alpha diversi

Poster:

Team samples: