—Seren Davies (Mentor: Ashley Bulseco)
Salt marshes are integral ecosystems that filter nutrients, serve as habitats, and act as carbon sponges due to the microbial communities within their soils. These low-lying marshes are under threat of wash-over events, where water and sediments breach natural barriers and flood the area, leading to changes in soil and plant composition. The impact of these wash-over events on the microbial communities is unknown but deciphering it could lead to advances in marsh restoration techniques. To do so, soil samples were taken at various depths from a salt marsh that has frequent wash-over events in Wellfleet, Massachusetts (Duck Harbor). DNA was extracted from these samples, and the 16s rRNA gene was amplified through PCR to determine taxonomic identities. These samples will be sequenced, and using published bioinformatics pipelines through R, a broad picture of the community will be obtained.
