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Welcome to my research landing page! This site highlights ongoing work to understand how birds respond to marsh restoration at two sites in the Barnegat Bay, NJ, Cattus Island and the Lighthouse Center for Natural Resource Education. The focal species of this project is the eastern black rail (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis), a federally endangered marsh bird. They occur in NJ (despite some USFWS range maps), but are often very secretive and hard to detect. We are interested in how black rail and other indicator bird populations respond to restoration techniques. The primary way this project will be collecting data on birds is through soundscape ecology, or the study of acoustic relationships between living organisms and their environment.

On this page, you’ll find information about:

  • Project goals and methods
  • Audio and pictures of the study sites
  • Data visuals and project updates
  • Contact information for collaboration

Please visit the GitHub repository for open-sourced code and tools to aid in your own research in soundscape ecology.

📚 Table of Contents

Project Overview

The primary goal of this project is to:

  • Evaluate how marsh restoration influences the acoustic environment.
  • Provide a reproducible framework for analyzing passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) data in tidal wetland habitats.
  • Make this analysis pipeline open source and adaptable for other acoustic ecologists, restoration practitioners, land managers, and conservation scientists.

Methodology

Coming soon —

Project Collaboration

This project is a collaboration between the USFWS Coastal Program and Rutgers University, with invaluable support from Danielle McCulloch, USFWS Coastal Program Biologist.

  • Rutgers University involvement was led by Kelly Faller as part of her Master’s thesis in the Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolution, under the advisement of Dr. Richard (Rick) G. Lathrop, the Director of the Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis (CRSSA). Kelly conducted fieldwork, data management, analysis, and report generation.
  • The USFWS Coastal Program involvement was led by Danielle McCulloch. USFWS provided equipment, field time, project management, and other crucial support. This project was designed by the USFWS and would simply not have happened without their efforts and continued support.

Logo-Rutgers-University Coastal Program Logo Seal_of_the_United_States_Fish_and_Wildlife_Service svg

Project Timeline

  • 2024: Initial deployments at Cattus Island and the Lighthouse Center. Field recordings were collected from late June through late September. Due to the limitations of recording period, this year is considered a proof-of-concept and collaboration-building year.
  • 2025: Expanded monitoring during breeding season. Acoustic recorders were deployed in early June and will collect field data through late October, incorporating fall migration season. SHARP point count and call-back surveys were completed during the breeding season window as per the SHARP protocols.
  • 2026: Continued monitoring and data analysis. Restoration activities planned for early 2026; preliminary findings will be shared with core partners.
  • 2027: Continued data analysis and thesis defense alongside ongoing monitoring.
  • 2028 and beyond: Ongoing post-restoration monitoring for adaptive management and an understanding of long-term marsh soundscape change.

Field Photos

Here’s a snapshot of our fieldwork:

cattus_area_4_deploying Setting up an acoustic recorder in Area 4 at Cattus Island on 6/3/25.

Cattus_Area_4 A view of the marsh habitat in Area 4 in Cattus Island on 6/3/25, showing marsh ditches, OMWM, and ponding. This marsh is in some serious need of sediment to raise the elevation!

dani_cat_area_1 Danielle McCulloch (USFWS Coastal Program Biologist) deploying acoustic equipment in Area 1 of Cattus Island on 6/3/25.

detector A close-up of the Cornell SwiftOne acoustic detector. These detectors are being used in this study to capture the soundscapes of the marsh.

Explore the Marsh

Want to know what a soundscape of the marsh sounds like? Below is an audio file recorded in a salt marsh along the Delaware Bay in early May 2023. The recording is from roughly 8 PM. What you’ll experience is a typical spring dusk chorus. Birds exhibit heightened periods of singing activity at dawn and dusk. The reason why is actually something that science has not quite figured out yet. There are many hypotheses for why. You can hear more about that here: The Field Guides Podcast: Ep. 73 The Dawn Chorus (Part 1)

How many species were you able to identify?

Sunrise at the marsh in Cedar Creek, DE.
Marsh sunrise.

Explore the Results

The data used in these analyses were downloaded using the backup feature on the Arbimon platform, and all species presence data was derived from extensive pattern matching analyses in Arbimon.

👉 Arbimon Project Page

To learn more about a similar project focused on low-cost and low-tech restoration techniques in marshes within the Delaware Bay, check out this Arbimon Project Page

Why Open Source?

I hope that by sharing this code on GitHub, other researchers and practitioners can:

✅ Use these scripts as a starting point for their own projects.
✅ Adapt the visualizations and metrics for different sites and monitoring goals.
✅ Contribute improvements or adaptations to strengthen the community of practice.

If you’d like to support my work or adaptations, please visit the “Sponsor this Project” banner on the repository page!

Citation

If you use or adapt these scripts, please cite them as described in the included CITATION.cff file.

Contact

Graduate Student, Rutgers University

Thanks for visiting—and happy listening! 🎧

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