Understanding Species Habitat Data in Transect

Learn about the species location type definitions in Transect.

Transect provides a variety of data to help you understand the potential presence of species in a particular location. This data is crucial for informing land management decisions, environmental assessments, and project planning. 

In this article, we'll review:

• Where to locate species data in a report
• Species location definitions
• Important considerations

Locating Species Data in a Report

Once you've run a Transect Report, you can access Species location information by selecting Species from the left-side menu. From here, you can select Federal Locations or State Locations (if available). This data table highlights the species and their location, where you can click the line to be routed to that location in the report map.

Species Location Definitions

Critical Habitat

Critical habitat is designed by USFWS as those areas that are essential to the conservation of a species and that may require special management and protection. Critical habitat may trigger additional regulatory review where projects have a federal nexus (i.e. federal permitting, funding, or land). Critical habitat often coincides with the presence of a species; additional investigation is highly recommended.

Element Occurrence (EO) - Official

Element occurrences (EO) include locations of known species occurrences, buffered by the estimated geographic precision of the source data. Species occur (past or present) within EO area, but may not always occur throughout the entire EO area (due to the precision buffer). Data is created and maintained by a state agency or institution and may be generalized per the agency’s terms of distribution.

Element Occurrence (EO) - Transect

Element occurrences (EO) include locations of known species occurrences, buffered by the estimated geographic precision of the source data. Species occur (past or present) within EO area, but may not always occur throughout the entire EO area (due to the precision buffer).

Element Occurrence (EO) - Anonymized

These element occurrences (EO) are obtained from sources which require some anonymization or obfuscation of data in order to be shared with third parties. For example, some entities may require the specific location or species names for an EO record to be excluded. In most cases, you are able to request the full, unanonymized data directly from the source entity. For more information about these records, feel free to reach out to Transect Support (support@transect.com).

Zone

A zone is delineated by, or on behalf of, an environmental agency or land management entity. A zone suggests the potential for a species or its habitat to occur in a particular geographic area based on habitat modeling and/or species occurrence data. Additional investigation may be warranted if the zone designation implies potential species presence.

Range - Official

A species range is the geographic area within which a species can be found or is thought to occur. Official ranges are delineated by or on behalf of USFWS or a regional or institutional organization.  It should not be assumed that a species occurs throughout its range, rather, the species may occur in areas where appropriate habitat is present. Additional investigation may be warranted to determine if potential habitat is present.

Range - Transect

Where an official sub-county range is not available, Transect has developed a proprietary range dataset utilizing federal species documents, scientific research, and other open sources about species population locations and/or the current range of a species. It should not be assumed that a species occurs throughout its range, rather, the species may occur in areas where appropriate habitat is present. Additional investigation may be warranted to determine if potential habitat is present.

Range - USFWS ECOS

Range data alone does not indicate the potential presence of a species but should be considered in combination with known occurrences, critical habitat, probability zones, and sub-county range data to determine if a species may occur in an area.

Important Considerations

• Your Transect Report includes species locations of any type (listed above) that intersect with your project AOI or buffer.
• Transect does not have element occurrence data for all states. When you see official element occurrence data listed in your Report, Transect has partnered with a regulator/steward of EO data in the state your project is located.
• Transect's automated analyses and expert reviews consider multiple components of species location data in order to provide you with a concern level for each Species. Along with the important context above, the above items provide more insight regarding the data points Transect assesses and where to look in order to capitalize on these features as well.
  • If Transect has definitive, high-quality species location data in your project's state, Transect will assess if your project intersects those primary, known locations of the species. Data that Transect has assigned this quality level to will have their primary attribute equal to true.
  • If Transect only shows exclusion areas (areas in which the species is known to not occur) for your AOI, the species concern level will be downgraded. Data that Transect has gathered regarding exclusion areas will have their exclusion_area attribute equal to true.
  • The Transect environmental team has assigned habitat characteristics to each species profile that let you know what characteristics are needed on or near your project for that species to occur. Numerous datasets (including waters, landcover, aerial imagery and more) are analyzed to assess whether that habitat characteristic is present on or near your project.