Brooklyn Urban Ecology and Environment Program (BUEE)

CITI Completion

ehook — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 23:38:13 +0000

Ella Hook – Individual Development Plan

ehook — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 23:31:05 +0000

Hook-Ella-myIDP-2024-6-20

Species Interactions Poster & Presentation

arodriguez — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 21:03:32 +0000

BUEE Pres _ 2023 Summer Research BUEE Pres _ 2023 Summer Research

08/09/23 – BUEE Science Day!

Tony Wilson — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 23:01:20 +0000

BUEE’s 2023 season wrapped up on August 9, with BUEE Science Day. Ten students and their faculty mentors presented their summer research to more than 50 participants from CUNY, partner institutions, and the surrounding community. Students returned to their home campuses for a well-deserved rest before the start of the Fall semester – it was a great summer!

07/19/23 – Kayaking at Downtown Boathouse

Tony Wilson — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 23:08:12 +0000

An afternoon paddling the Hudson, courtesy of the volunteer team at Downtown Boathouse – many thanks!

06/07/23 – Wildfire smoke reaches NYC

Tony Wilson — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 23:10:15 +0000

We experienced the impact of Canadian wildfires during the first week of the BUEE program. Our excursion to Q Garden’s rooftop beehives was cut short due to smoke from these wildfires, which significantly impacted NYC’s air quality and blotted out the sun. New York briefly had the worst air quality on the planet, striking evidence of the connectivity of the global ecosystem.

Student Project: Assessing natural and nature-based shoreline features (Branco Lab)

bbranco — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 16:50:10 +0000

Natural and Nature Based Shoreline Features (NNBF) are being integrated into coastal resilience strategies due to the variety of services that they provide. These services may include ecological enhancement, flood risk reduction, and socio-economic benefits. A new statewide framework for monitoring the performance of NNBF relative to other shoreline types will help shape NY State policies and practices for shoreline management. This summer, we will be applying the framework at sites around Jamaica Bay including the newly completed living shoreline project at the West Pond in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. BUEE students will work with our partners to collect field data and interpret finding to better understand the value of NNBF for coastal climate adaptation.

Student Project: Trace metal contamination in bioswale soils: an indicator of urban air pollution? (Cheng Lab)

zcheng — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 14:16:13 +0000

Thousands of bioswales had been built in New York City. Each of them helps infiltrate thousands of
gallons of stormwater runoff from streets, alleviating the pressure on wastewater treatment plants and
reduce the combined sewer overflow – the leading cause of water quality problem for major cities.
These bioswales also accumulate pollutants in the runoff, thus could serve as an indicator of air quality
around the bioswale. Topsoil samples have been collected from dozens of bioswales in New York City.
We are looking for a student to perform lab and data analysis, to investigate the potential relationships
between soil metal contents, land use, traffic density, and other variables.

Student Project: Quantifying soil quality improvements of leaf mulch incorporation (Cheng Lab)

zcheng — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 14:12:35 +0000

Leaf mulching and subsequent incorporation into soils in situ have been piloted in New York City, as a
means to reduce the labor and cost of leaf collection and offsite transportation, as well as to promote
beneficial use of organic waste to improve soil quality for vegetation and stormwater infiltration. This is
an excellent example of efforts to reduce carbon footprint and to achieve carbon neutral by 2050.
However, such improvements have not been quantified or even validated in the field. We are looking for
a student to perform field and lab measurements, to work alongside with NYC agency staff as well a
graduate student at Brooklyn College.

Student Project: Disturbed and diverse: Soil and green infrastructure microbial communities of New York City (Muth Lab)

trmuth — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 21:34:45 +0000

Human activity in cities alters the biodiversity of insects, plants, and animals – frequently lowering the biodiversity and replacing native species with introduced species. Changes in urban biodiversity impact the health and resilience of urban ecosystems. Urban soil microorganisms contribute to important ecosystem services, such as biogeochemical cycling, decomposition, and plant growth promotion. We and others have found that the biodiversity of soil microorganisms increases in urban soils that have been heavily impacted by human activity. This holds true for the soils present in NYC green infrastructure sites such as green roofs, tree pits and bioswales. We hypothesize that human activity increases the number of microenvironments, or tiny niches, within the urban soils, and these niches support a diverse community of microorganisms. To test this hypothesis, this BUEE project will extend beyond our initial work to include a wider range of urban soil types and expand our analyses to include fungi and cyanobacteria. We will collect and analyze soil microbiome DNA samples from multiple sites across NYC, and to employ newly developed PCR primer sets that target a wider range of microorganisms. We expect that results from this project will contribute to a better understanding of urban soil microbiome diversity and resiliency. These findings could provide urban planners with insight on how green infrastructure soils can be managed to maximize their ecosystem services.