BaSIC (Biodiversity and Spatial Information Center) is producing the relational database structure and protocol for consolidating and reviewing data as part of the ongoing regional effort. In addition, predicted habitat maps of 30-40 species based on a mosaic of existing land cover throughout the region have been created. Care is being taken to select species representing both game and non-game interests within a variety of habitats as well as selecting species of concern as identified by the USFS.
The development of regional ancillary data sets (i.e. roads, topography, hydrology) will be initiated by BaSIC and will continue into the second year of effort.
Another primary goal during the first year is developing a unified land cover classification based on NatureServe Ecological Systems. Ecological Systems (ES) are the result of an effort by NatureServe to group associations occurring together on the landscape to units recognizable to a majority of biologists unfamiliar with the National Vegetation Classification System (NVCS) as well as providing a better match to units derived through remote sensing. The use of ES in our vertebrate database ensures its adaptability to different land cover maps as well as its ease of use due to recognizable units.
The format of the regional vertebrate database being developed is based on the existing NC-GAP database. The NC-GAP database not only houses habitat relationship data, but also taxonomic information, textual descriptions of habitat, literature citations, and spatial modeling criteria. Pre-defined reports in the database will produce HTML information pages for each species as well as data files ready for the modeling process. The modeling environment consists of ESRI Arc/Info raster based modeling with Arc Macro Language scripts.