U.S. Fish & Wildlife ServiceThis is a feature set depicting estimated bat activity level for bats of the genus Myotis (Myotis lucifugus, M. septentrionalis) modeled using the Great Lakes bat acoustic dataset (downloadable from https://www.fws.gov/radar/acoustic/index.html and also available on the BatAmp platform). These species were grouped as the calls used to identify the two species are difficult to distinguish from one another. A series of spatio-temporal models were built with decision tree regression on various spatial covariates (land cover, distance from physiographic features, geography) and temporal covariates (weather, time of night, time of season) with bat pass counts (at locations specified in the Bat Sites point layer) as the response. The covarite-specific responses identified by the models were then used to predict bat pass rates across the region based on spatial characteristics, under a set of static temporal conditions associated with above-average bat activity levels. The values of each shape indicate the predicted activity level on a relative scale, taking a categorical value from a range of 24 different values. The activity levels depicted represent bats of the genus Myotis (Myotis lucifugus, M. septentrionalis). A thorough description of the modeling methodology can be provided in the manuscript "Spatial models of acoustic data identify Great Lakes coasts and northern forests as bat activity hotspots" by Heist et al. (available on request from FWS Radar Project [fws.gov/radar] or Kevin Heist [kevinwheist@gmail.com])ArcGIS FeatureLayerhttps://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/f5fe00fc93a147f9a5686b2b56cf0f26_0engU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Open DataPublicbats myotis 150 [United States]Web servicesUnited StatesLast Modified: 2020-09-15