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, transects
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.
Visual Encounter Transect Surveys of reptiles, birds, and other vertebrate wildlife taxa were conducted at study sites in the Great Valley and Mojave Desert in 2016. A total of 1,856 transect surveys (GV: 517, MD: 1339) at 321 study sites (GV: 91, MD: 230) were conducted between March and July 2016. For each survey, observers walked two 200-meter transects and recorded counts of and distances to all wildlife observed. The two transects are laid out as a cross intersecting at a right angle, with this intersection occurring at survey site center. The exact orientation of the cross and the sinuosity of transects was left to the discretion of the surveyor(s) to optimize sampling of the site-designated lifeform and to facilitate ease of travel (e.g., barriers or steep slopes). In the case of a riparian lifeform site, one transect was aligned along or near the stream course, and the second along the gradient extending to either side of the stream course. In the case of a guzzler or wetland, transects were aligned along approximately perpendicular sides. A laser rangefinder was used to accurately measure the perpendicular distance from the transect to the location of each wildlife group at the instance of its initial observation. The crew also noted all wildlife signs (tracks, scat, burrows, nests) observed; in particular, every scat group within a 1-m swath on either side of the transect was noted and identified by species whenever possible. All scats and tracks were removed from the swath so that return visits encountered fresh sign. Individual surveys focused on either reptiles and amphibians, or on birds and scat, but observations from all surveys were combined into this dataset. These data were used for distance sampling methods to estimate abundance.
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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 | -122.071777 | East | -113.890861 |
| North | 39.637979 | 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.