Audubon cites UMaine researcher in saltmarsh sparrow article

University of Maine research was included in the Audubon article, “The saltmarsh sparrow is creeping dangerously close to extinction.” The report mentioned the Saltmarsh Habitat and Avian Research Program (SHARP), a scientific task force that spans the Atlantic coast and includes UMaine researchers. Mo Correll, a postdoctoral researcher with UMaine, has spent the past six years visiting tidal marshes to count birds for SHARP. After combining her observations with data dating back to 1998, she discovered saltmarsh sparrow populations were shrinking by 9 percent each year, according to the article. Correll’s latest research looks at four other bird species from the marsh, but shows that the sparrows are by far the most imperiled. A new study in the journal Conservation Biology, which Correll helped write, also found that infrastructure near the coast, such as roads and rail lines, may be largely to blame for the population decline, and any resiliency marshes once had against sea-level rise is slowly being erased, the article states.