Using GIS to determine trap placement

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Using GIS to determine trap placement

• Erik Bartholomew
• 9 December, 2004

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Quivira National Wildlife Refuge

• Established 1955
• Total of 22,135 acres
• Located 40 miles Southeast of Great Bend
• Sandy prairie interspersed with salt marshes
• Most famous as a stopover for migratory birds
• Little known about local fauna

Water
Road
Boundary
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Where do I put my arrays?

• Big question when I got started this last spring.
• Burned areas
• Lack of vegetation
• Dry vs. Wet areas

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Treatments
0-year
10-12 year
3-year
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Where did I put my arrays?
Water
0 Year
3 Year
Long Term
Roads
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Objectives

• Use GIS to determine if traps were placed at
  random with respect to vegetation.
• Would not expect them to.
• Tried to get arrays in grassland areas.
• Hypothesis
• Arrays are not placed at random with respect to
  vegetation type.

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Background

• Research has shown that vegetation is correlated
  with soil.
• Positive correlation between hydric soils and
  wetland plants. (Dick-Peddie et.al.)
• So, I also looked at soil type.

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Methods

• Made a buffer around each array at 200 meters
• Average home range Coluber and Thamnophis. (Fitch
  1963 and 1965)
• Map calculator between soil, vegetation layer,
  and distance to array giving me number and type
  of each vegetation and soil within 200 meters of
  each array

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traps
Buffer zones
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Results

• Using a Chi square
• None of the arrays are significant

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Conclusions

• Placement of my arrays do not represent
  vegetation or soil on QNWR.
• Expected it would not with respect to vegetation
• It would have been useful to have done this
  before my research was conducted.
• Just to make sure

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Implications of Results

• May not need to use GIS for trap placement
  concerning vegetation type
• For soils however, would be useful if that is
  your goal

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Limitations

• Restricted to QNWR
• And predetermined burning units
• Vegetation and Soil _at_ 30x30m2 grid

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Future

• Determine if captures are correlated to
  vegetation types
• Determine if captures are correlated to soil
  types
• Use GIS to assist in trap placement
• To stay away from wet areas.
• In similar vegetation and soil type.

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References

• Dick-Peddie, William A., Joanne V. Hardesty,
  Estaban Muldavin, Barbara Sallach 1987.
  Soil-Vegetation Correlations on the Riparian
  Zones of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers in New
  Mexico New Mexico State University Las Cruces
  Dept of Biology.
• Fitch, H.S. 1963. Natural History of the racer,
  Coluber constrictor. Univ Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat.
  Hist. 15(8)351-468.
• -- 1965. An ecological study of the garter snake,
  Thamnophis sirtalis. Univ. Kansas. Publ. Mus.
  Nat. Hist. 15(10) 493-564.

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