Mentor: Carlos Prada, University of Rhode Island

Project Location

University of Rhode Island-Kingston

Project Description

Progress has been made in documenting changes in biodiversity across Narragansett Bay (NB) in relation to nutrient, oxygen and salinity dynamics both spatially and temporally with positive impacts on ecosystem management, but two chief barriers remain. First, traditional surveys to record biodiversity are expensive, laborious and require taxonomic expertise. The second is that visual census techniques or quadrats result in lower biodiversity estimates. This project builds upon previous biodiversity surveys as well as continuous monitoring of physical and chemical parameters across NB to understand the impacts of ecosystem change associated with nutrient dynamics. The fellow will investigate ecological dynamics of marine communities in Narragansett Bay by using environmental (eDNA) widely available in the water column. Under our supervision, the fellow will develop skills in water collection and filtering, DNA extraction and sequencing, and species identification for fast and efficient biodiversity monitoring. By studying changes in species composition in NB, the fellow will also be able to document changes to the ecosystem, provide new estimates of invasive species and document the spatial and temporal dynamics of community structure across seasons.