Project:

Species Richness of Macroinvertebrates Within the Lower Hudson River Estuary

Students:

Destiny Coley, Jasmine Mendoza, Gabriel Castro

School:

Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, Manhattan

Mentors:

Mauricio Gonzalez

Abstract:

Determining the biodiversity in the estuary is a key factor to discover the stability of the ecosystem. The New York Harbor is thriving with many unexpected organisms that are essential to the ecosystem’s health. They aren’t visible with first glance, but these invertebrates are just as important to help the harbor flourish. Invertebrates filter out the New York estuary water every day of harmful chemicals and algae (Nigro,2011). This project will help discover the biodiversity when looking at invertebrates in a focused area. The goal of this project is to determine the invertebrate’s biodiversity in the estuary with DNA barcoding. Hypothesizing that the harbor isn’t very diverse due to the amount of pollution and trafficking within the harbor. Even though there is an increase of caution and attention (acknowledging the human impact on the estuary, and attempts to decrease human impact.) brought to the harbor, the harbor is still recovering from human impacts. Such as pollution

Poster:

Team samples: