GPS locations of Bobcats on and around Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge from 2013-2021: USFWS-TXDOT Collaborative Dataset

The USFWS uses standard data terms like Darwin Core terms in this dataset whenever possible to describe some of the data fields for each record. Darwin Core is a suite of standards terms, labels, and definitions that assist the scientific community in the sharing of biodiversity information (Darwin Core Task Group 2021) (http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm). These data used Darwin Core to keep USFWS datasets similar to that required by the Global Biodiversity Infrastructure Facility (GBIF). In doing so, the dataset is improved to a higher standard of data organization and similar to other datasets we will, or have already, released. Terms were also used from the Extended Measurement or Fact extension (eMoF) in Darwin Core. The eMoF extension is a standard for documenting measurements and facts related to both sampling events and species occurrences. We also used standard terms from the Movebank Attribute Dictionary (hereafter “Movebank” below) when no similar term was found in either the main terms of Darwin Core or the eMoF extension. Terms used in Movebank describe studies, events (e.g., collar locations), deployments and tags. The Movebank vocabulary can be cited as follows: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. 2024. Movebank Attribute Dictionary. British Oceanographic Data Centre, Natural Environment Research Council Vocabulary Server. http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/MVB. Users of the dataset should refer to those sources if more clarity is needed about a given field, or how it might relate to information from other databases. Some cells may refer to other datasets. Keep in mind there is a complementary dataset on the Service Catalog (https://iris.fws.gov/APPS/ServCat/Reference/Profile/181747). While some terms are self-explanatory, the following terms are those typical of Darwin Core and GBIF.org. Some may seem repetitive, unnecessary, and of little use to users but they were included as they had been part of the larger dataset during curation: type, eventType, basisOfRecord, occurrenceID (a good row to use to sort data given these unique codes), ownerInstitutionCode, institutionID, samplingProtocol, scientificName, scientificNameID, vernacularName, sex, eventTime, occurrenceStatus, eventRemarks, continent, countryCode, stateProvince, county, altitude, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus. Each term that deserved a more detailed explanation is listed below. The term “license” which is populated by “CC BY 4.0” signifies the data is being provided under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, granting others the freedom to share, adapt, and build upon our work, if they properly credit the authors, and the agencies or “institutions” as Darwin Core refers to them. The term “license” is a Darwin Core term. The term “accessRights” shall remain with this data in any way that you use it. This is a Darwin Core term. The term “samplingProtocol” is a link to the Digital Object Identifier (and access to the file) for the USFWS Standard Operating Procedures used to collect and process the data. This can be placed in your internet search browser and will resolve at a site on the internet where the file can be reviewed or downloaded. This is a Darwin Core term. The term “lifeStage” was a rough estimate of age (i.e., juvenile or adult) based in part on the study of ocelots in Texas, wherein the weight of ocelots appeared to be correlated with age in the kitten and juvenile stages of life (see the next chart). Ocelots were classified as adults when their age was estimated to be 2 or more years. These estimates were applied to bobcats as well. The term “lifeStage” is a Darwin Core term. Age estimated based on measured mass/weight at the time of capture and handling 0 - 5 months = 3.4 kg or less 6 - 11 months = 3.4 - 6 kg 12 - 17 months = 5.1 - 6.6 kg 18 - 23 months = 6.2 - 7.2 kg Only two bobcats (i.e., BM291 and BM306) were considered juveniles at the time of capture. When BM291 was captured on May 5, 2014, he was estimated to be 12-14 months old and weighed 6.6 kg. When BM306 was captured on May 9, 2015, he was estimated to be 12-18 months old and weighed 7.0 kg. Users should use the data relating to lifeStage for these young bobcats carefully considering their proximity to age estimates and how those estimates were derived. Under “organismName”, "BF" signifies bobcat female, and "BM" signifies bobcat male. The three-digit code following the alpha-code was a unique number assigned to each individual ocelot and bobcat uniquely identified as part of the cat monitoring program at the Refuge; a system that was accurate and consistent since approximately 2007. This is a Darwin Core term. The term “collarSerial” provides the serial number for a particular collar that was deployed on a bobcat. Some bobcats may have had multiple collars deployed on them if caught across various seasons. Some collars had a slightly different data acquisition schedule. Also, some collars may have performed better than others. Users may find use in comparing across collar deployments. The term is part of the Measurement Or Fact extension. The term “eventTime” in this dataset is the time in Central Standard Time accounting for Daylight Savings Time. In some complementary datasets eventTime was written to ISO 8600 format where the -0500 or -0600 is appended after the time and is provided to recognize the offset from Greenwich Mean Time (accounting for Daylight Savings Time) as a standard under DarwinCore. The term “geodeticDatum” was used to inform users that the datum for the calculation of the decimal degree coordinates was based on the WGS84 reference system. Original locations were in Universal Transverse Mercator and converted to decimal degrees in latitude and longitude using ArcGIS Pro 3.7.1. Due to our expertise using these collars we were confident in estimating the term “coordinateUncertaintyInMeters” to be 10 m of accuracy. Each of those are Darwin Core terms. The term eventRemarks was used to provide a note relating to the collar’s deployment or functionality (e.g., errors or something odd to consider in using the data, and or when the collar was dropped using a remote command device). This is a Darwin Core term. In some complementary datasets the term “organismRemarks” may have been used and can be considered synonymous with “eventRemarks”. As the information describes the event as opposed to some character of the organism, this term has been changed to “eventRemarks” in more recent datasets. The term “GPS time to fix" is the amount of time (in seconds) it took the Tellus collar system to acquire a GPS location. When collars were programmed USFWS had the opportunity to require the collar to get a location within a certain timeframe or to wait until the next scheduled time if a location cannot be obtained in the allotted time; this was to conserve battery in cases where the collar was working too long to get a position. If for example the Time to Fix was set to a maximum of 90 sec the value will never be over 90. USFWS staff do not recall a time limit being programmed. Values in the dataset range from 30-119 seconds. This is a Movebank term. The term “altitude” (in meters) was estimated for the GPS collar location by the Tellus collar system. These data were not considered accurate or precise by USFWS but a general reference. This is a Darwin Core term. The term “GPS HDOP” stands for Horizontal Dilution of Precision of the GPS collar. It is a measure calculated from the geometry of the GPS satellites used to determine the GPS collar location. This is a fraction as in “1.8”. It is unitless. This is a Movebank term. The term “GPS satellite count” as per a note from the collar manufacturer: Number of satellites that were used to fix the position, usually a value between 3 and 12. This is a Movebank term. The term “activity x” is an estimate of the lateral movement/activity of the GPS collar at the time of the location. Note from manufacturer: Movement corresponding to the animal leaning the head up and down (nodding). This figure can be a value between 0-180. This is a Movebank term. The term “activity y” is an estimate of the vertical movement/activity of the GPS collar at the time of the location. Note from manufacturer: Movement corresponding to the animal shaking its head. This figure can be a value between 0-180. This is a Movebank term. The term “temperature”, as per the manufacturer, is a measure of temperature inside the GPS collar and is an estimate of the collared animal’s temperature in degrees Celsius. This value is affected by both the ambient and the body temperature. Note that if the collar is exposed to direct sunlight, this temperature may be higher than the surrounding air temperature, as the sunlight increases the temperature in the GPS collar. Also, because the temperature sensor is built inside the main housing, a sudden rise or fall in air temperature will be recorded with some delay (as it takes some time before the temperature inside the unit reaches the surrounding air temperature). This is a Movebank term. The term “recordedBy” are the names of the individuals that were responsible for handling the animal, placing a collar on it, and/or curating the dataset. This is a Darwin Core term. The term “recordedByID” is the Open Researcher and Collaborator Identification (ORCID) codes unique to those individuals named in the “recordedBy” cell. This is a Darwin Core term. For any data that were not recorded, the value entered was “NR”. **** NOTE: The bobcat named as “BF293” was part of an experiment to translocate a young adult bobcat from a distant USFWS tract to practice conservation translocation to train USFWS staff in the application of a recovery action staff would undertake for the endangered ocelot population at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. The bobcat moved away from the release site on the Refuge into the study area for the FM 106 project, so USFWS agreed to allow the data of this individual to became part of this collaborative USFWS-TXDOT data set. This is referenced in brevity under eventRemarks. ****