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Predicted habitat suitability rasters for at-risk herpetofauna species in the longleaf pine system in the Southeast US

Metadata Updated: October 30, 2025

The polygon data in the geodatabase represent range-wide habitat suitability model predictions for five species of herpetofauna: gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus), southern hognose snake (Heterodon simus), Florida pine snake (Pituophis melanoleucus mugitus), gopher frog (Lithobates capito), and striped newt (Notophthalmus perstriatus). Collectively, the habitat suitability polygon layers extend across the range of these species in the Southeast US, including areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. This assessment was conducted by the USGS Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Georgia in collaboration with other partners. Habitat suitability models were developed to 1) identify habitat features that best predict species presence and 2) estimate the amount and distribution of suitable habitat across each species’ range under current conditions. Habitat suitability models were created using comprehensive datasets of species occurrence records maintained by natural heritage programs, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), State agencies, academic researchers, and HerpMapper.org. Each species' final model included between four and nine predictors representing geospatial datasets of landscape attributes that were publicly available from various sources. These predictors included soil drainage from gridded SSURGO (raster) data from NRCS, land cover classification and canopy cover data from the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD), fire frequency from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration MODIS data of annual fire detections and U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior LANDFIRE fuel disturbance data, compatible wetlands classified from USGS National Wetland Inventory database, climate data using 30-year (1981-2010) averages from the University of Idaho Gridded Surface Meteorological Data, and local relative elevation using the USGS Digital Elevation Model (DEM). The resulting layers represent all areas within species' ranges with low, medium, and high predicted habitat suitability, based on predicted Habitat Suitability Index that could range from 0 (least suitable for the species) to 1 (most suitable). The set of habitat suitability layers are named using five letter codes based on the species name (e.g., Gopherus polyphemus = GOPOL). For layers with "100" at the end of their database names, only polygons of large areas (> 1 square-km) are included in the polygon layer. Finally, the geodatabase includes a layer whose value indicates the number of species out of five for which the area was predicted to be suitable (named "HSI_all_overlap100", see accompanying publication). Habitat suitability for all species was strongly influenced by soil characteristics, land cover, and fire interval. Suitable habitat was distributed on known species strongholds, as well as private lands without known species records. A full discussion of the compilation methodology and sources used to develop the habitat suitability data is available in the accompanying publication: Crawford, B.A., J.C. Maerz, & C.T. Moore. 2019. Expert-informed habitat suitability analysis for at-risk species assessment and conservation planning. Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management. in review.

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.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5d0d479de4b0941bde52a2ed
Data Last Modified 2024-02-08T00:00:00Z
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 b8bf8e91-737e-4de1-ad76-0e38a8584bff
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -91.2863, 23.9561, -76.0014, 36.6899
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 6911b07041161e4a08b182257aa8402c0766b4d5d5025d607bdb9fd48c900f22
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -91.2863, 23.9561, -91.2863, 36.6899, -76.0014, 36.6899, -76.0014, 23.9561, -91.2863, 23.9561}

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