Integrity layer:

This layer represents the composite count overlap of six polygon source data sets that consider ecosystem structure, function, and composition in order to estimate relative ecological integrity across the High Divide region. We define and estimate ecological integrity by assembling publicly available spatial data that describe “elements of composition, structure, function, and ecological processes” (after Parrish et al. 2003; Wurtzebach and Schultz 2016) as described below.

Connectivity layer:

From Belote et al. 2022, we used the middle tolerance scenario with a 150 m moving window and reclassified raster based on the mean value (.727). Everything above the mean was considered "suitable" connectivity. The layer was clipped to the analysis area and converted into a polygon. Dreiss et al. (2022) extracted raw data values on connectivity and climate flow for areas that were IDed as climate-informed corridors based on categorical connectivity and climate flow dataset (TNC 2020). The remaining values were rescaled to fall between 0 and 1. A second climate corridor dataset (Carroll et al. 2018) was similarly rescaled. These two datasets were combined and locations in the 80th percentile of the distribution of combined values were analyzed. Higher values in the dataset indicate more optimal climate corridors. From Dreiss et al. 2022, here we took the upper 66% of values from the climate-informed wildlife corridors, as the top 33% and 50% were both insufficient to show data in the region given the dataset's national scale. The layer was clipped to the analysis area and converted into a polygon.

These two layers were combined using the Count Overlap tool.