The Spotfin chub Potential Habitat dataset is a polygon layer depicting high, moderate and low potential habitat locations for Spotfin chub in NC counties.

Spotfin chub's (Erimonax monachus) historical range included Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia. The species’ preferred habitat is relatively low-silt substrates in good flows and it forages commonly on bedrock, boulders, cobble. In fall and winter, primarily young individuals will move up small trib streams from source mainstem populations (e.g., Little Tennessee R., NC). Spawning probably does not occur in small tribs

The three levels are: Low, Moderate, and High Probability of Potential Habitat (based on similarity of environmental conditions to those found at known occurrence locations). The category thresholds were set based on the distribution of predicted values for known habitat. The High-Moderate threshold is set at the level where 90% of the observed potential habitat (species presence and reviewer judgments) falls within the High category (Presence Percent Correctly Classified). The Moderate-Low threshold were set at the level where 8% of the observed potential habitat (species presence and reviewer judgments) falls within the Moderate category and 2% within the Low category. The final thresholds for this species are 0.336 and 0.57 for the Low-Moderate and Moderate-High thresholds, respectively. Lower thresholds result in more of the range labelled as High probability of habitat and greater misclassification of known non-habitat locations. Higher thresholds result in more of the range labelled as Low probability of habitat and greater misclassification of known habitat locations.

Given the larger spatial unit of ecological models and ecological characteristics of aquatic species, the landscape scale environmental attributes of potential habitat varied greatly among sites and could closely resembled non-habitat sites. It is important to remember that potential habitat (and non-habitat) can occur at any classification level within a catchment and must be verified by a qualified biologist.

For more information please click here https://xfer.services.ncdot.gov/gisdot/Metadata/Atlas/TechDocs/

Datasets developed under Project ATLAS do not replace any NRTR work for future projects and may not be used as a replacement for site visits / field surveys by qualified professionals and hence should be used only as a supporting platform for decision making. Use of this dataset for project scoping or screening is merely pre-decisional.