Wildlife Habitat Relationships

The project will model the predicted distribution of each vertebrate species that resides, breeds, or uses habitat in the state for a substantial part of its life history, including important migration stopovers. The distribution maps will indicate predicted species presence for known, probable, and possible areas of its geographic range. Specific methods, deliverables, and standards will follow those in the GAP handbook. The Wildlife Habitat Relationships data base development will begin during the second year of this project

Dr. Thomas C. Edwards, of the Biological Resources Division Cooperative Research Unit at Utah State will take the lead in the development of the WHR database for the state of Utah. Dr. Edwards will identify and solicit the cooperation of those institutions and individuals possessing data on pertinent species or groups of species. This will include production and review of wildlife habitat relation models, providing species occurrence location records, production and review of range maps, review of draft distribution maps, and possible cooperation on the production and publication of species atlases and/or field guides. Partnerships will also be sought for digital conversion of museum and other locational records to the extent that the activity can be supported by cooperators, completed within the project’s time frame, and that they are believed to have substantial information useful in the modeling and assessment process.

The final distribution maps will be assessed for accuracy according to the GAP handbook methods and standards. This will, at a minimum, be comprised of comparison of GAP-predicted species lists with existing high confidence checklists from management areas such as national parks and refuges.