Mojave Ground Squirrel Connectivity (Demographic) v1701311750

Then, we use the concept of nodes in this connectivity model, rather than traditional concept of “core areas.” We augmented our MGS observations database (elsewhere, based on CNDDB and BISON, post 2000) with post-2000 observations from Rich Inman. The Inman data have been submitted to CNDDB, but not integrated yet. We mapped all these locations, and buffered each point by 100,000 cost-distance meters. Hence, we used the MGS resistance surface, which ranges from 1-1000. So 100 m at the lowest resistance would be a cost distance of 100, and of the highest resistance would be a cost distance of 100,000. Hence observations in really high quality habitat, according to the species distribution model and/or the input resistance surface basemap, result in a relatively large area node. Observations in poor habitat will have a small area node. Overlapping nodes were dissolved, and those that were less than 1 sq. km. were removed.

We then implemented the New Linkage Mapper Methodology, as per the methods document:

see "Connectivity with Cores and Nulls for the top level results