Project:

The Effect of Human Interference on the Biodiversity of Terrestrial Spiders in Western Suffolk County of Long Island

Students:

Aidan Ciesluk, Dean Festa

School:

West Islip High School, Suffolk

Mentors:

Mary Kroll

Abstract:

There are currently about 37,000 species of spiders that have been barcoded on Long Island, but more are being discovered every day along with different invasive species (Barrett & Hebert, 2005). Some of these unknown species can be dangerous to humans as they could be venomous or poisonous, but many could also be beneficial because some venom can help with medical conditions (“Deseret News”, 2018). Other spiders could also have a positive effect on the ecosystem, like controlling insect populations (Paetzold, Lee & Post, 2008) therefore their biodiversity needs to be preserved. We will be placing 60 traps in total and our goal is to catch at least one spider in each. We believe that foot traffic from humans and plant abundance will have an effect on the amount of spider biodiversity. Then once they are caught, we will use basic taxonomic guides to identify them. If we cannot do that, we can get a more precise identification from the barcoding of spiders; these will be our test samples

Poster:

Team samples: