DOI Project #MB32; Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief; Assess Tidal Marsh Communities; Northeastern USA

This is an announcement for issuing a single source financial assistance award to the University of Maine in Orono, Maine. This announcement is for notification purposes only. The intent of the award is to assess the impacts of Hurricane Sandy on the tidal marsh bird and plant communities of the Atlantic Coast in the Northeastern United States to ensure that immediate action can be directed to areas that will provide the greatest benefit to improving the function of coupled human-natural systems and that conservation priorities and institutional interventions for increasing resource resilience can be developed. This award is issued to provide financial assistance to 1) collect tidal marsh bird and vegetation survey data at (a) sites previously sampled by the Saltmarsh Habitat and Research Program during the summers of 2011-2013, (b) selected National Wildlife Refuges/Complexes along the U.S. Atlantic Coast as part of the Salt Marsh Integrity Assessment (SMI), and (c) additional sites where Hurricane Sandy restoration activities will be implemented on Department of Interior lands in order to quantify immediate-term ecosystem resilience and restoration effectiveness; and 2) collect post-storm reproductive and adult survival data from previously marked populations of Nelson¿s Sparrow, Saltmarsh Sparrow, Seaside Sparrow, Clapper Rail, and Willet located between NJ and ME.