River Ecology
Investigating the effects of zebra mussels on the Hudson River
New York State's Hudson River has seen many changes, but perhaps none more dramatic than the arrival of the zebra mussel in 1991, and its rapid spread. To fully understand environmental changes like this one, you must consider the whole ecosystem: the web of interactions among organisms and their physical environment. Biologists at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies have been studying the Hudson's freshwater tidal ecosystem since 1987. They look for patterns in their data in order to understand how the river is changing, and might change in the future. This website gives you access to decades of actual data these scientists have collected about the river. It is divided into four sections. You can:
- read the Overview for background information about the river, its inhabitants, and their interactions;
- access Curricular Materials--videos and text passages with discussion questions;
- Graph the Data to pick which factors to view in relation to one another; and
- Make a Scatterplot to help observe patterns in the data.
This project is a collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History and The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.
Funding for this web site provided by the National Science Foundation. Grant # DRL-0918560
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.