DOI: 10.5061/dryad.jm63xsj7d
title: Data from: Habitat suitability and connectivity modeling reveal priority areas for Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) conservation in a complex habitat mosaic

description: Context Conservation for the Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis), a federally
 endangered species in the United States of America, is typically focused
 on local maternity sites; however, the species is a regional migrant,
 interacting with the environment at multiple spatial scales. Hierarchical
 levels of management may be necessary, but we have limited knowledge of
 landscape-level ecology, distribution, and connectivity of suitable areas
 in complex landscapes. Objectives We sought to 1) identify factors
 influencing M. sodalis maternity colony distribution in a mosaic
 landscape, 2) map suitable maternity habitat, and 3) quantify connectivity
 importance of patches. Methods Using 3 decades of occurrence data, we
 tested a priori, hypothesis-driven habitat suitability models. We mapped
 suitable areas and quantified connectivity importance of habitat patches
 with probabilistic habitat availability metrics. Results Factors improving
 landscape-scale suitability included limited agriculture, more forest
 cover, forest edge, proximity to medium-sized water bodies, lower
 elevations, and limited urban development. Areas closer to hibernacula and
 rivers were suitable. Binary maps showed that thirty percent of the study
 area was suitable for M. sodalis and 29% was important for connectivity.
 Most suitable patches were important for intra-patch connectivity and far
 fewer contributed to inter-patch connectivity. Conclusions While simple
 models may be effective for small, homogenous landscapes, complex models
 are needed to explain habitat suitability in large, mixed landscapes.
 Suitability modeling identified factors that made sites attractive as
 maternity areas. Connectivity analysis improved our understanding of
 important areas for bats, identified suitable patches that may be isolated
 from the habitat network, and prioritized areas to target restoration.
description: Cable_et_al_env_data.gdb Land cover
 environmental data (e.g., total area of forest in 500-m radius) were
 derived from the "Land cover of Illinois 1999-2000" (IDNR 1999).
 The original dataset was resampled from 30-m to 100-m resolution. The
 classes were simplified into major (forest, water, urban, agriculture,
 grassland, and other) and minor classes (bottomland forest, coniferous
 forest, and deciduous forest). Total area, total edge, and the number of
 patches were computed in FRAGSTATS using moving window analyses (100-m,
 500-m, and 1-km window sizes). Distance to water was
 calculated in ArcMap 10.6.1 (ESRI) using the water area shape files from
 the National Hydrography Dataset (USGS 2018). Distance to major roads was
 calculated using the Illinois Department of Transportation road data (IDOT
 2017). We calculated the distance from roads that receive an average daily
 traffic rate of &gt;2 cars/minute. Original data
 citations: Illinois
 Department of Natural Resources, Illinois Natural History Survey, Illinois
 State Geological Survey, Illinois Department of Agriculture, United
 States    Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics
 Service (1999) 1:100,000 Scale. Land Cover of Illinois 1999-2000, Raster
 Digital Data, Version 2.0, September 2003
 https://clearinghouse.isgs.illinois.edu/data/land-cover/land-cover-illinois-1999-2000-data Accessed 4 October 2018 Illinois Department of Transportation (2018) Illinois roads, shape file data https://apps.dot.illinois.gov/gist2/ Accessed 4 October 2018 U.S. Geological Survey (2018) National hydrography dataset https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/ngp/national-hydrography/national-hydrography-dataset?qt-science_support_page_related_con=0#qt-science_support_page_related_con Accessed 4 October 2018   Cable_et_al_outputs.gdb We created suitability maps by modeling <em>Myotis sodalis</em> maternity habitat in MaxEnt. We binarized models based on the 10% suitability threshold in our training occurrence data. We used the Raster to Shapefile tool in ArcMap 10.6.1 to generate the suitable areas shapefile. We calculated patch importance for habitat connectivity for each suitable area polygon in Conefor Sensinode 2.6. The isolated suitable areas shapefile represents suitable areas that are only important for intra-patch connectivity and not inter-patch connectivity. These methods are explained in detail in "Habitat suitability and connectivity modeling reveal priority areas for Indiana bat (<em>Myotis sodalis</em>) conservation in a complex habitat mosaic." We created the priority restoration areas shapefile by buffering <em>Myotis sodalis</em> hibernation sites by 125 meters and buffering suitable habitat patches by 10.1 km. We intersected the two buffers to create the layer. <em>Myotis sodalis</em> occurrence locations cannot be shared due to federal restrictions.  
description: Cable_et_al_env_data.gdb Variable
 naming: ta = total area te = total
 edge np = number of patches dist =
 distance to a feature 100 = 100-m radius
 500 = 500-m radius 1 = 1-km radius
 for = forest wat = water
 bot/bottomland = bottomland forest conif =
 coniferous forest ccd = closed-canopy deciduous
 forest ag = agriculture urb =
 urban (e.g., ta_for_100 is total area of forest in a
 100-m radius; np_wat_1 is number of water patches in a 1-km
 radius) null is a raster with values 1-100 randomly
 distributed across the landscape Resolution:
 100-m x 100-m cells Coordinate
 System: NAD_1983_UTM_Zone_16N
 Datum: NAD_1983
 Other: ASCII format 3415
 columns, 6190 rows  
 Cable_et_al_outputs.gdb Suitable_areas are
 polygons that are suitable as determined by our MaxEnt habitat suitability
 models Conefor_patch_metrics is a table of the
 connectivity importance values for each suitable patch. One could join the
 table to the shapefile for visualization.
 Isolated_suit_areas are polygons that are only important for
 intra-patch connectivity, thus are more isolated from the <em>Myotis
 sodalis</em> maternity habitat network
 Priority_restoration_areas are areas that are within 125 km from
 a known hibernaculum and also within 10.1 km of a suitable area for
 <em>Myotis sodalis</em>