Statewide habitat assessment for white-tailed deer in Arkansas (Odocoileus virginianus)

I conducted a landscape-scale assessment of habitat suitability for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Arkansas. I used National Land Cover Data (NLCD) satellite imagery and applied both habitat suitability index (HSI) and pattern recognition (PATREC) approaches to create models for habitat assessment. I tested the results of these models against an empirical population index that combined relative abundance and nutritional condition of deer. Both approaches accounted for about 40% of the variation in the population index. I concluded that: (1) model performance shows these tools to be useful for the evaluation of wildlife habitat at broad scales; (2) both HSI and PATREC models are appropriate methods of habitat assessment; (3) models should be tailored to ecologically distinct regions; (4) the evaluations are limited by the quality of classified imagery and the quality and resolution of population data; and (5) GIS software provides a good opportunity to make complex habitat evaluations more user-friendly.