The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) recently released a set of nested sampling frames spanning Canada, the United States, and Mexico. These data allow for repeatable, consistent and coordinated sampling efforts of bat species across multiple scales, regions and countries. The sampling frames are available as three separate data releases that represent different levels of detail. The North American Grid-Based Sampling Frame data release provides raw grids at four different resolutions (1 km, 5 km, 10 km and 50 km). The two associated releases provide the final grids to be used for bat monitoring (all at 10 km resolution except for Hawaii and Puerto Rico at 5 km resolution). The Master Sample and Grid-Based Sampling Frame facilitates sampling that is randomized and spatially balanced, resulting in data that are consistent and able to be easily consolidated. The Attributed Master Sample and Grid-Based Sampling Frame builds on this by incorporating a variety of land cover and land management metrics to allow for refined local study design. (Colin Talbert, talbertc@usgs.gov, Information Sciences).
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