A note on preserving the spark of a matrix

Let Mm×n(F) be the vector space of all m×n matrices over a field F. In the case where m ≥ n, char(F) ≠ 2 and F has at least five elements, we give a complete characterization of linear maps Φ: Mm×n(F) → Mm×n(F) such that spark(Φ(A)) = spark(A) for any A ∈Mm×n(F).