Conte et al. 2023. Geese Poop of Purchase College’s Great Lawn may lack influence on the eutrophication of Blind Brook

When a body of water is given a surplus of nutrients, it can cause an overgrowth of plants and algae, leading to deoxygenation. This process is called eutrophication. A way that water bodies receive an influx of nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus , and becomes eutrophied, is through runoff. When geese drop their feces , they contain nitrogen and phosphorus which can potentially make its way into a body of water through runoff. So in this experiment, there were soil samples taken of the soil at the Great Lawn of Purchase College, to then see if the soil samples collected downstream of Blind Brook contained the elevated levels of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from the Great Lawn, that was due to the presence of goose feces. Our results did show that presence of geese feces did increase nutrient levels, but only at the Great Lawn, meaning the feces was not running off into Blind Brook and not causing possible eutrophication. These results could also help push research to figure out where the nutrients do runoff to, and if there is a buffer zone, and if so what possibly absorbs the nutrients , around Blind Brook.

Read the full article