USGS GAP - Alaska - Vertebrates - 1867-2009

Occurrence Observation
Latest version published by United States Geological Survey on Aug 3, 2020 United States Geological Survey

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 1,193,488 records in English (20 MB) - Update frequency: not planned
Metadata as an EML file download in English (13 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (11 KB)

Description

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Alaska Gap Analysis Project (GAP) compiles many smaller datasets of species occurrences to provide baseline information for conservation in Alaska, particularly when combined with other current efforts. These species occurrences (more than 1M occurrences for 300+ vertebrate species) were used with other ancillary data to generate distribution models and species range maps. The GAP models are among the first range-wide habitat models for vertebrate species at this resolution for Alaska. Prior to using Alaska GAP data, users are encouraged to become familiar with the GAP modeling process. These data provide researchers and managers with a tool for understanding the distribution of vertebrates within the context of these species habitats in Alaska.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 1,193,488 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Gotthardt, Tracey, Sanjay Pyare, Falk Huettmann, Kelly Walton, Miles Spathelf, Kelly Nesvacil, Andy Baltensperger, Grant Humphries, and Tamara Fields. 2014. PREDICTING THE RANGE AND DISTRIBUTION OF TERRESTRIAL VERTEBRATE SPECIES IN ALASKA. Alaska Natural Heritage Program. Anchorage, Alaska.

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is United States Geological Survey. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 31a35af0-c997-4f76-b045-9942bc14b896.  United States Geological Survey publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF-US.

Keywords

Metadata; Animalia; Chordata; Vertebrata; gap analysis; species distributions; vertebrates; Observation

External data

The resource data is also available in other formats

Data.gov landing page for access to GAP data at a national level https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/u-s-geological-survey-gap-analysis-program-species-distribution-modelsaea06 UTF-8 html
USGS GAP - Alaska - Vertebrates - 1867-2009 in USGS BISON online species mapping application https://bison.usgs.gov/?providerID=440&resourceID=100051 UTF-8 CSV, SHP

Contacts

Tracey Gotthardt
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
  • Alaska GAP project coordinator
Alaska Natural Heritage Program, Beatrice McDonald Hall
  • 3211 Providence Drive, University of Alaska
99508 Anchorage
Alaska
US
  • 907-786-6352
Alexa McKerrow
  • Originator
  • Ecologist and Remote Sensing Analyst
USGS Science Analytics and Synthesis Program
  • 127 David Clark Labs, University of North Carolina
27695-7617 Raleigh
North Carolina
US
  • +1 919-513-2853
Annie Simpson
  • Metadata Provider
  • biologist and information scientist
USGS Core Science Systems
  • 12201 Sunrise Valley Dr, Mail Stop 302
20192 Reston
VA
US
  • 17036484281

Geographic Coverage

Approximate polygon for the state of Alaska; not exactly based on lat/lons of dataset's records.

Bounding Coordinates South West [50.63, -179], North East [71.34, -128.97]

Taxonomic Coverage

310 species of vertebrates

Kingdom Animalia (animals)
Phylum Chordata (chordates)
Subphylum Vertebrata (vertebrates)

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 1867-01-01 / 2009-01-01

Project Data

No Description available

Title US Geological Survey Gap Analysis Program - Alaska - Vertebrates
Funding US Geological Survey Gap Analysis Program
Study Area Description The study area was the state of Alaska. Occurrence records were compiled from over 600 unique sources and were collected using diverse survey methods, study areas, and target taxa. Many wide-ranging taxa utilized habitats differently across their range, or elevation limits changed due to latitudinal differences over the study area. In an attempt to capture regional variation in habitat utilization, but not produce multiple models for a single taxon, Ecological Systems were filtered by physiographic region (including: Aleutian, Artic, Boreal, Sub-boreal, North American Pacific Maritime and Temperate Pacific) before the associated Ecological Systems were identified as suitable habitat or not for each taxon.
Design Description Because the dataset includes records from more than 600 sources, the design descriptions varied too widely to describe.

The personnel involved in the project:

Tracey Gotthardt
  • Author

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Gotthardt, Tracey, Sanjay Pyare, Falk Huettmann. 2008. Project proposal: The Alaska Gap Analysis Program: modeling the distribution of vertebrate species using an inductive and deductive approach. Alaska Natural Heritage Program. http://sealab.uas.alaska.edu/pdfs/AK_GAP_Distribution_Modeling_Project_Narrative.pdf

Additional Metadata