File Geodatabase Feature Class
Tags
TSM, Terrestrial Species Stressor Monitoring, drought, central valley, Great Valley, Mojave Desert, environment, California, biodiversity, bird, bat, reptile, amphibian, vegetation, camera, camera trap survey
In response to a drought State of Emergency declared by the Governor in January 2014 and subsequent executive orders, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) was charged to implement projects that respond to drought conditions through habitat restoration and other measures. To provide scientific information necessary to meet these conservation challenges, leadership at CDFW prioritized establishment of a statewide resource assessment program, one component of which would be to monitor wildlife populations and their vulnerability to drought stressors. The purpose of Terrestrial Species Stressor Monitoring (TSM) was to begin the monitoring process by collecting baseline survey data on a wide variety of common wildlife species throughout the Great Valley and Mojave Desert ecoregions. Data collected at some or all study sites include infrared camera trap images, ultrasonic acoustic recordings, audible acoustic recordings, visual encounter surveys for reptiles and amphibians, avian point counts, and vegetation surveys. The data will be used to estimate occupancy and abundance of wildlife species and to model associations with drought and other habitat conditions.
Camera traps were deployed at 320 sites across the Mojave Desert ecoregion and 265 sites across the Great Valley ecoregion between March and July of 2016 and 2017. At each survey location, a Reconyx PC900 camera trap was cable-locked onto a T-post that was securely placed in the ground and baited with a 1-kg salt lick, 500 ml of oatmeal-peanut butter mixture, and 150 g of fishy cat food. Cameras were programmed to take three photos at each trigger event with a delay of one second between trigger events. Each camera was deployed for an average of 34 days at sites in the Mojave Desert ecoregion and 29 days at sites in the Great Valley ecoregion.
Photos collected were reviewed to identify observed animals to the species-level, and multi-species hierarchical occupancy models were used to estimate 1) species-specific probabilities of occupancy, 2) the richness of terrestrial mammal species weighing >0.5kg, and 3) community and species-specific responses to the different ecological covariates. Each 24-hr period was treated as a repeat survey at a particular camera, where a '1' indicated species x was photographed at camera y on trap day z and a '0' indicated that it was not. A species' probability of occupancy (i.e., the probability a species used the area surrounding a camera trap during our survey) was assumed to be influenced by ecological covariates, such as the presence of an artificial water catchment, precipitation, and temperature in the Mojave Desert ecoregion, or water availability, temperature, and natural vegetation cover in the Great Valley ecoregion. A species' probability of detection (i.e., the probability a species was photographed if present) was assumed to be influenced by ecological covariates, such as human disturbance and precipitation.
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License: This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ). Using the citation standards recommended for BIOS datasets ( https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Data/BIOS/Citing-BIOS ) satisfies the attribution requirements of this license.
Disclaimer: The State makes no claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or adequacy of these data and expressly disclaims liability for errors and omissions in these data. No warranty of any kind, implied, expressed, or statutory, including but not limited to the warranties of non-infringement of third party rights, title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and freedom from computer virus, is given with respect to these data.
Extent
| West | -122.262150 | East | -113.842257 |
| North | 40.217404 | South | 33.862025 |
| Maximum (zoomed in) | 1:5,000 |
| Minimum (zoomed out) | 1:150,000,000 |
License: This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ). Using the citation standards recommended for BIOS datasets ( https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Data/BIOS/Citing-BIOS ) satisfies the attribution requirements of this license.
Disclaimer: The State makes no claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or adequacy of these data and expressly disclaims liability for errors and omissions in these data. No warranty of any kind, implied, expressed, or statutory, including but not limited to the warranties of non-infringement of third party rights, title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and freedom from computer virus, is given with respect to these data.