Brook Stickleback occurrence and environmental data 2020-2021

Brook Stickleback Culaea inconstans is an aquatic invasive species in Wyoming that may pose a risk to native biodiversity. Our aim was to evaluate the current risk Brook Stickleback poses to native fish species in the North Platte River drainage. We updated the current distribution of Brook Stickleback, evaluated for possible range expansion, and determined landscape-level habitat drivers and occupancy potential for streams across the North Platte River drainage. Data included in this release was used to 1: run a random forest classification model to determine Brook Stickleback habitat associations in lotic environments at the landscape scale, 2. to determine habitat suitability across the study area based on predicted values from our random forest mode, and 3: conduct non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) to visualize Brook Stickleback’s community associations.