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Arctic

Atlantic Offshore Seabird Dataset Catalog

Dataset Summary

Agency	U.S. Geological Survey
Sub-Agency/Organization
Category	Environment and Conservation
Date Released	20110902
Date Updated
Time Period	1906 - 2009
Frequency	Irregular
Description	Several bureaus within the Department of Interior compiled available information from seabird observation datasets from the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf into a single database, with the goal of conducting research and informing coastal and offshore planning activities. The cooperators were the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM) Environmental Studies Program (http://www.boem.gov/Environmental-Stewardship/Environmental-Studies/Envi...), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) Division of Migratory Bird Management (http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/) and the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov). The resulting product is the Atlantic Offshore Seabird Dataset Catalog, which characterizes the survey effort and bird observations that have been collected across space and time. Currently, the database contains ~60 datasets from 1906-2009 with over 260,000 records of seabird observations. Data will initially be provided as summary web mapping services, with web feature services (for downloading and looking at single-species data) at the linkage given elsewhere in this document. USAGE: Seabirds provide unique challenges even when using estimation techniques to sample populations (e.g., Tasker et al. 1984, Spear et al. 1992). To date, there has been little consistency among survey designs. Surveys have varied by the type of vessel from which they are conducted (ship, plane), the methodology that counts are made, the width of the area being counted, and equipment used, among many other differences. Under such circumstances, comparing results and making inferences can be difficult. Because these estimates of effort-adjusted counts do not account for detection probability, they are likely biased by factors that affect this parameter such as weather, survey method, observer, or other environmental variables (MacKenzie et al. 2006). Such results may be considered naïve in that they do not account for factors that can affect the ability to detect an animal. Furthermore, these results contain data collected over a 30 year period without regard for any long term temporal changes that may have occurred with species or the environment. Further analysis is necessary to determine if such changes have occurred with any species. While it is possible to separate data collected recently from historical (>20 years old) datasets, the amount of recent data is limited and therefore maps showing only these data may be limited spatially. Finally, effort calculations do not account for survey width, while normally static during a survey, can be reduced during certain conditions and does vary by survey method, especially boat vs. plan surveys. The vast majority of survey data collected offshore U.S. Atlantic waters were collected using similar techniques and so effort data will not be greatly affected by such discrepancies. Still, such differences do exist and were not accounted for; therefore, this estimate of survey effort is a rough surrogate for effort. Consequently, the effort-adjusted counts will also be affected by differences in survey methodology and should be considered only roughly offset by effort.

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Dataset Information

Data.gov Data Category Type	Geodata
Specialized Data Category Designation	Geospatial
Keywords	ISO 19115 Topic Category, environment, EPA GIS Keyword Thesaurus, Biology, Marine, Modeling, Monitoring, Natural Resources, Regulatory, None, Atlantic Coast, Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia
Unique ID	31C9386E-CAA1-494B-8844-D947A297A7EE

Contributing Agency Information

Citation	USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
Agency Program Page
Agency Data Series Page	http://gis1.usgs.gov/arcgis/rest/services/USGS_Patuxent_Wildlife_Researc...

Dataset Coverage

Unit of Analysis
Granularity
Geographic Coverage	-99.8626, -51.935, 64.9086, 23.3786

Data Description

Collection Mode
Data Collection Instrument
Data Dictionary/Variable List	Features are generalized seabird occurrences.

Additional Dataset Documentation

Technical Documentation
Additional Metadata	XML Format

OMB Control No. 3090-0284