Andy Cortese

2019 RAP Award SUNY ESF – Doctoral Candidate Study of mycorrhizae fungi in the forest soil RAP student, Andy Cortese from SUNY ESF, is studying the mycorrhizae fungi in the forest soil in Mianus River Gorge Preserve. The soils have developed a complicated underground network of mycorrhizal fungi that are hundreds of years old (visible […]

Trent Wacaster

Wildlife Tech Class of 2020Putnam Valley High SchoolMentor: Zach Gajewski (Virginia Tech) Project: Anuran diversity and pathogen load in MRG vernal pools Project Status: Ongoing Project Description: Trent was mentored by RAP student, Zach Gajewski, who is studying the pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) that is infecting amphibians worldwide. Zach is focusing on how existing microbial communities […]

Chris Meng-Killeen

Wildlife Technician Class of 2020 Irvington High School Project name: Activity patterns of mammal communities in NYC parks Project Status: Completed Project Description: Chris worked on the Gotham Coyote Project, examining potential effects that newly arrived coyotes had on the activity patterns of other species. Using nearly 500 thousand pictures from our camera traps located throughout […]

Erin McKenna

Wildlife Tech Class of 2017High School for Environmental StudiesMentor: Chris Nagy (MRG) Project: Variability in Detection of Coyotes in New York City Parks and Implications for Research Project Status: Completed Project Description: Since 2012, camera traps have been deployed in 10 parks in New York City to study the occupancy dynamics of Canis latrans (eastern […]

Animals Nobody Loves

I always loved the book by Ronald Rood called “Animals Nobody Loves” or the poems by Ogden Nash on the same subject.  I still remember Nash’s rhyme:  “God in all his wisdom made the fly, and then forgot to tell us why”.  The truth of the matter is that there are legions of critters that […]

Studying Pollinator Assemblages

Last summer, Sydney Lonker (White Plains HS) and Madeline Bueher (Pelham HS) began studying the pollinator assemblages at three of the Preserve’s meadows. The abundance and diversity of the bees and other insect pollinators found at each meadow will help MRG determine if our restoration and management of these areas is providing habitat for the […]

Signe Forsingdal

Wildlife Tech Class of 2016Scarsdale High SchoolMentor: Nicole Fusco (Fordham) and Chris Nagy (MRG) Project: The Effect of Habitat Fragmentation on the Movements of Eurycea bislineata Project Status: Completed Project Description: Steam salamanders, such as the two-lined salamander Eurycea bislineata, are important members of the terrestrial and aquatic food webs. They can be used as indicators of […]

Brilliance hidden in forest canopy

In the northeast we are fortunate to have our forests growing older.  As forests age, soils become more complex, topography more undulating, species composition more diverse, and the layering of the forest more apparent – herbaceous, understory, and overstory habitats more defined.  One indicator of this change, is the presence of a distinctive group of […]

Isabela Yepes

Wildlife Tech Class of 2018Carmel High SchoolMentor: Chris Nagy (MRG) Project: Wetland functional assessment in the Mianus River Watershed Project Status: Completed Project Description: There is extensive evidence that natural wetlands contribute to ecosystem biodiversity and natural improvement of water quality which can impact the drinking water of a watershed (Beam, 2004; Alho, 2005). Specifically, the health […]

Monika Ryczek

Wildlife Tech Class of 2018High School for Environmental StudiesMentor: Chris Nagy (MRG) Project: Using count (N-mixture) models to model habitat and socioeconomic factors as predictors of coyote site use in NYC Project Status: Completed Project Description: Coyotes have now colonized several parks in the borough of the Bronx, the only mainland portion of NYC, and are poised […]