Sub regions for Greater Sage-grouse in Nevada and California (August 2014)

Spatial associations between marked sage-grouse and existing PMU boundaries (Nevada Department of Wildlife, 2014) were used as an initial starting point for delineating subregions for habitat selection analyses and naming conventions across Nevada and northeastern California (fig. 3). Ultimately, the data were partitioned into 19 subregions based on movement patterns of individual radio-marked sage-grouse for habitat analyses, with each grouse occupying one subregion only. Some subregions contained too few marked sage-grouse for sufficient training data to develop a habitat model, which resulted in the exclusion of seven subregions with fewer than 20 marked sage-grouse or less than 100 telemetry locations. However, data from these excluded ‘non-RSF’ subregions were sufficient to provide further validation of the region-wide model in areas that were not used to train the model. After data-screening, we included telemetry data from 12 subregions in the habitat training models: Buffalo-Skedaddle, Butte-Buck-White Pine, Cortez, Desert-Tuscarora, Gollaher-O’Neil, Lincoln-Schell-Snake, Lone Willow, Midway, Sheldon, South Fork-Ruby Valley, Toiyabe, and Virginia Mountains (fig. 4). The spatial extent of habitat availability for use in habitat modeling was defined by first calculating a minimum convex polygon (MCP) that encompassed all telemetry locations within each subregion, and then buffering each MCP by the maximum average daily sage-grouse movement (1,451 m). Using the MCP to identify the study extent is a common and useful approach for habitat studies (Aebischer and others, 1993), and buffering by the maximum average daily movement helps ameliorate underestimation of habitat availability.NOTE: This file does not include habitat areas for the Bi-State management area.Coates, P.S., Casazza, M.L., Brussee, B.E., Ricca, M.A., Gustafson, K.B., Overton, C.T., Sanchez-Chopitea, E., Kroger, T., Mauch, K., Niell, L., Howe, K., Gardner, S., Espinosa, S., and Delehanty, D.J. 2014, Spatially explicit modeling of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) habitat in Nevada and northeastern California—A decision-support tool for management: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2014-1163, 83 p., http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ofr20141163. ISSN 2331-1258 (online)

[
  "010:12"
]

[
  "geospatial"
]