By Lauren Tooley
Cullen Duval, Emma Dauster, and Kylie Evans made amazing discoveries this year in the TIME class. They studied tardigrades, which are microorganisms that live in lichen and moss. Emma had studied them previously and Cullen and Kylie joined her in researching them this year.
This year, they researched the effects that imidacloprid, an insecticide, and glyphosate, or Roundup, on tardigrades in Transylvania County. They found that glyphosate was toxic to the tardigrades and imidacloprid was not. The group is concerned about these results because glyphosate was toxic to the tardigrades at a level that was lower than the recommended dose.
In the future, they want to continue their research with glyphosate and imidacloprid to see the long term effects they have. They also want to test other pesticides and fungicides to see their effects on tardigrades.