Anna-Maria Riley
(M.S. Biology - 2024)
For her MS in Biology, Anna-Maria studied the impact of human traffic and artificial lighting on microbial communities in show caves in the southern Appalachians, and performed preliminary microplastics analyses across show caves vs. pristine caves.
MS Thesis Title: Human impact in Appalachian cave systems: How anthropogenic presence leads to the deposition of microplastics and alteration of native microbial cave communities