Software

Bats play crucial ecological roles, and provide valuable ecosystem services, yet many populations face serious threats from various ecological disturbances. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) aims to assess status and trends of bat populations, while developing innovative and community-driven conservation solutions using its unique data and technology infrastructure. To support scal

BMRGSU is software developed by the U.S. Geological Survey for Bayesian mapping of regionally-grouped, sparse, univariate, Earth-science data. This software implements an algorithm that smooths the estimated property across regions so that the deleterious effects of sparse data are mitigated. The algorithm can account for measurements that are censored, it can process multiple datasets with differ

We developed the hyperparameter optimization and predictor selection (HOPS) software to optimize hyperparameters and predictor selection while limiting correlation among the selected predictors for machine learning models. Including correlated predictors in machine learning models can distort model estimation and prediction and introduce bias in predictor importance estimates. The HOPS software ex

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter referred to as sage-grouse) are landscape-scale sagebrush obligate species and an important gamebird and iconic species of the West (Hanser & Knick, 2011; Rowland et al., 2006). They occupy the sagebrush biome in western North America, extending east of the Sierra Nevada/Cascade Mountain ranges to the western regions of the Great Plains of

PopEquus is a predictive modeling tool to support decisions related to the management of free-roaming horse populations. It permits the simulation and comparison of how management alternatives influence horse population size and metrics associated with management. This repository uses R scripts with predictive functions from the PopEquus model to simulate how management alternatives (e.g., removin

The Three-Part Method for Quantitative Mineral Resource Assessment has been used by the USGS to predict mineral resources since at least 1975. These predictions use pooled data, and the effects of the pooling on the predictions is investigated and reported in the forthcoming USGS publication. The calculations and figures for this report are performed with software that will be permanently stored i

PopEquus is a website application that can be used to understand trade-offs and inform decisions in free-roaming horse (Equus caballus) population management. The application (https://rconnect.usgs.gov/popequus/) contains a predictive population modeling tool that can be used to simulate how different management actions drive changes in horse population size, while measuring management costs and o

We developed a method to construct hierarchically nested and biologically relevant groupings of similar habitats associated with field surveys while considering structure/connectedness (movements between habitats). This approach can support mobile species using high fidelity sites where monitoring during surveys occurs, such as birthing grounds, breeding grounds, or stopovers/seasonal habitats for

The distance within which populations respond to features in a landscape (scale of effect) can indicate how disturbance and management may affect wildlife. Using annual counts of male greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) attending 584 leks in southwest Wyoming (2003-2019) and estimates of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) cover from a remote sensing product (Rigge et al., 2021; Monroe et al.,

We developed a software framework to estimate high-resolution spatiotemporal soil moisture (monthly, annual, and seasonal) and temperature-moisture regimes. Our approach builds on the Newhall simulation model, allowing for the substitution of data and parameters, such as climate, snowmelt, soil properties, alternative potential evapotranspiration equations, and air-soil temperature offsets. The Ne

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are landscape-scale sagebrush obligate species and an important gamebird and iconic species of the western United States. They occupy the sagebrush biome in western North America, extending east of the Sierra Nevada/Cascade Mountain ranges to the western regions of the Great Plains of the United States. Sage-grouse are one of the most closely monitor

We present software that creates least-cost path spanning trees, a least-cost path minimum spanning tree, and graph theory centrality measures. The software was developed to support identification of population structures--specifically, greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), but also support other species or graph theory applications where least-cost paths are desired. We used habitat pa