2010 Winning Essays

Article Ethology of Friendship Among Adult Male Bonnet Macaques, Macaca radiata, at Arunachala Hill, India For this 13-year-old, a highlight of his family's annual visit to the Arunachala Mountain in southern India is watching and interacting... Article Cryptic Species and Synonyms: A Reclassification of the Tropical Spurilla Genus This young naturalist traveled to the Gulf of Mexico to see whether the differences in two types of sea slugs were great enough to... Article Cleaning the Water With an appreciation for the scarcity of fresh drinkable water, this young naturalist set out to test methods for filtering the contaminated... Article Bear Brook: Strong Evidence of Pollution To the human eye, Bear Brook seemed devoid of life. But was that really the case? See how this young naturalist investigated the... Article The Role of Microbial Communities in the Breakdown of Wastewater Pharmaceuticals Increasingly, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment, which can endanger wildlife. This young naturalist examined... Article Trails in the Snow: The Effects of Reforestation on Mammal Distribution in the Baraboo Hills The first snowfalls of winter have transformed the landscape into a pristine, silent, unscathed world. The sounds of birds and animals... Article Diversity of Foliar Endophytes in Wild and Cultured Metrosideros Polymorpa Inferred from Environmental PCR and ITS Sequence Data This young naturalist from Hawaii set out the answer the question: Which comes first, the ohi'a lehua tree or the mushroom that uses... Article Which Way Out--A Study of the Exit Tunnels Made by the Goldenrod Gall Fly, Eurosta solidaginis Monarch butterflies have an internal magnetic compass that guides their migration. Is a similar force at work guiding the gall fly’s... Article Effects of the Aquatic Environment on Growth of the Amphibian Pathogen Bactrachochytrium dendrobatidis Amphibians have thrived on Earth through two major Ice Ages and four global warming periods, yet a fungus now threatens them worldwide... Article Quantifying the Relative Abundance of Juvenile Atlantic Sturgeon, Acipenser oxyrhychus, in the Hudson River For years the populations of Atlantic and shortnose sturgeons were declining, particularly in the Hudson river. This young naturalists... Article Going for the Green A golf course can be a beautiful sight for golfers and non-golfers, alike. But does the tremendous amount of manicuring, fertilizing,... Article Project Phosphogypsum: The Effect of Phosphogypsum on the Water-retaining Properties of St. Augustine Grass All over the world, people are running into the problem of what to do with useless phosphogypsum stacks piling up, and the world... Article Investigating the Ecology of Chelydra s. Serpentina, the Common Snapping Turtle, in a Highly Urban Setting Chelydra s. serpentina, the common snapping turtle, is one of the largest freshwater turtles in North America. This species has a...