Unconventional shale gas development is a rapidly expanding driver of forest loss and fragmentation in the central Appalachian region. The researchers evaluated the relationship between breeding passerine abundances and distance from shale gas development at a long-term (2008–2017) study site in northern West Virginia, USA.

Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla) populations have undergone significant declines at core nonbreeding sites in northeastern South America. Breeding populations have also declined in the eastern North American Arctic, but appear to be stable or increasing in the central and western Arctic.