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Mapping landscape connectivity for moose across the northeastern United States

Metadata Updated: December 10, 2025

Connectivity describes how well a landscape facilitates or impedes the movement of animals. Maximizing connectivity is a common management goal, especially for large mammals like moose (Alces americanus americanus) that occupy large home ranges and have the capacity to move long distances. Moose in the northeastern US (encompassing the states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) represent a management priority and are expected to decline due to the near-term impacts of climate change and landscape development that will alter the distribution of habitats across the region. Large-scale maps of moose connectivity are unavailable but would provide an important resource for management planning to improve moose persistence in the landscape. We used an omnidirectional circuit-theory approach to model and map moose connectivity across the six states in the northeastern US. The approach involved integrating a distribution map developed from an occurrence model and a resistance map developed from expert opinion data, along with home range information and current landcover maps to depict expected movement flow. The data release includes 1 CSV file that contains expert-elicited responses regarding moose occurrence and resistence to movement. The release also includes 6 rasters (1 and 2) the Omniscape inputs files named "source.tif" and "resistance.tif"; (3) the connectivity raster using a 0-threshold "source" input named "cumulative_current_map_raw0.tif"; (4) the Omniscape connectivity raster using a 0.2-threshold "source" input named "cumulative_current_map_raw02.tif"; (5) and (6) the respective normalized connectivity rasters, named "normalized_map_crop0.tif" and "normalized_map_crop02.tif". The latter two rasters can be categorized into flow categories if desired: impeded (areas with less current than in a resistance-free landscape), diffuse (areas with as much current as a resistance-free landscape), intensified (areas with more current than a resistance-free landscape), and channelized (areas with much more current than a resistance-free landscape).

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date December 10, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date December 10, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-666893bdd34e9bcc607b7f39
Data Last Modified 2024-07-08T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id abfefd3e-22f4-453a-809e-497e4646083c
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash bd2eb117ae2bc6522ef3ef96858346ca228895455f1f6a7e93ccffb7fc5cef92
Source Schema Version 1.1

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