Urbanization has been known to significantly impact many ecological systems. As humans build up communities, they are often disrupting ecology. Less known than the impact of humans on the macroscopic scale, is the impact that they can have on the microscopic scale. Tardigrades or “water bears” are known for their resilience. Tardigrades are capable of surviving without food for many years, enduring extreme temperatures, radiation, and even space like environments. With the ability to survive nearly impossible environments these water bears can create an excellent picture of what human urbanization is doing to micro-environments.

We were interested in how Tardigrade colonizations are affected by human impact, and if this affects the migration of Tardigrades and their dispersal. We collected lichen from urban and rural trees, smaller than 6 inches and greater and 1 ft. We than socked the samples in water and then made a count of the different number or tardigrades. The Chi-Square Goodness of Fit test and Chi-Square test for Independence both showed that location is not significant to the number of tardigrades found in a lichen sample. However, in both urban and rural areas, there was a greater tardigrade presence observed in the larger tree size (diameter).

Results:

The Chi-Square Goodness of Fit test and Chi-Square test for Independence both showed that location is not significant to the number of tardigrades found in a lichen sample. However, in both urban and rural areas, there was a greater tardigrade presence observed in the larger tree size (diameter).

Urbanization has been known to significantly impact many ecological systems. As humans build up communities, they are often disrupting ecology. Less known than the impact of humans on the macroscopic scale, is the impact that they can have on the microscopic scale. Tardigrades or “water bears” are known for their resilience. Tardigrades are capable of surviving without food for many years, enduring extreme temperatures, radiation, and even space like environments. With the ability to survive nearly impossible environments these water bears can create an excellent picture of what human urbanization is doing to micro-environments.

Discussion: When we performed a Chi-Square Goodness of Fit test including both variables, tree size and location, we did not find that their effects were statistically significant. We determined this based on the Chi-Square Goodness of Fit Test (p=0.3222). The location of the tree does not seem to have an effect tardigrade colonization. However, they do prefer larger trees approximately greater than a foot as shown in our chi square test for independence.

Conclusion: From our study we concluded that human urbanization has no significant impact on Tardigrade colonization. We did find that regardless of the location, Tardigrades had a strong preference for larger trees than small trees which suggests that the older the tree, the more time Tardigrades have had to colonize it. Further research could investigate more on Tardigrade dispersal.