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HABITAT DISTRIBUTION MODELS FOR 37 VERTEBRATE SPECIES IN T HE MOJAVE DESERT ECOREGION OF NEVADA, ARIZONA, AND UTAH
Citation:
BOYKIN, K., D. F. BRADFORD, AND W. G. KEPNER. HABITAT DISTRIBUTION MODELS FOR 37 VERTEBRATE SPECIES IN T HE MOJAVE DESERT ECOREGION OF NEVADA, ARIZONA, AND UTAH. Presented at Clark County Desert Conservation Program Coordination Meeting, Henderson, NV, October 18, 2007.
Impact/Purpose:
Healthy Communities and Ecosystems - by providing ecosystem research and methods development at multiple scales, utilizing landscape ecology and associated techniques
Description:
Thirty-seven covered species in the Clark County Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSHCP) were previously modeled through the Southwest Regional Gap Analysis Project (SWReGAP), using a deductive approach. To increase the applicability of such habitat models in the region pertinent to the MSHCP, we revised the 37 deductive models for the Mojave Desert Ecoregion using additional information and finer scale datasets that were not available for the original SWReGAP models (e.g., SSURGO [soils], mesquite/acacia). We also explored an inductive modeling approach (Maximum Entropy) using locality records for four species: desert iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis), common chuckwalla (Sauromalus ater), phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens), and desert kangaroo rat (Dipodomys deserti). Differences in extent of habitat predicted between the original and revised deductive models ranged from nil to dramatic, with the revised models for the majority of species predicting greater habitat extent than the original models. A gap analysis was conducted by determining the extent of habitat predicted by the revised models within each SWReGAP conservation status category and within each MSHCP land-management category (IMA, LIMA, etc.). The results were generally similar for the two categorization schemes. For most species, the fraction of the species' range in the most protected SWReGAP conservation categories was much higher for the Mojave Desert Ecoregion and Clark County than for species' ranges throughout the 5-state SWReGAP study area.