"Sea Grant is among the funders on a 50-year study of salt marsh ecology that has concluded that more than 90% of the world's salt marshes could succumb to sea level rise by the end of the century. "
The shadows in the Mackay Island Natural Wildlife Refuge marshes are the King Rail. Introduced in a book by naturalist John James Audubon, this bird species is often seen only by birders and biologists, because of its shy nature and tendency to live in remote places.
Teri O'Meara, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is taking on the soft mud of the North Carolina Coastal Reserve in order to study the nitrogen cycle of marshes at Carrot Island and Currituck Banks.