Gunnison sage-grouse habitat suitability surface for Cerro Summit-Cimarron-Sims satellite population (breeding, landscape): U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service critical habitat extent (southwestern Colorado)

The Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus) habitat suitability surface for Cerro Summit-Cimarron-Sims satellite population represented here reflects breeding season at a landscape scale context (window extents [radius] of 1 km, 3 km, and 6.4 km). Habitat suitability estimated for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service critical habitat extent (southwestern Colorado). This population did not have sufficient use locations to model habitat, and therefore, we extrapolated the Crawford population (nearest and considered most similar to Cerro Summit-Cimarron-Sims habitat) models to this location. However, roads were not digitized for the Cerro Summit-Cimarron-Sims population, so we selected the top model from Crawford that did not include transportation. We developed habitat selection models for Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus), a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. We followed a management-centric modeling approach that sought to balance the need to evaluate the consistency of key habitat conditions and improvement actions across multiple, distinct populations, while allowing context-specific environmental variables and spatial scales to nuance selection responses. Models were developed for six isolated satellite populations (San Miguel, Crawford, Piñon Mesa, Dove Creek, Cerro Summit-Cimarron-Sims, and Poncha Pass) from use locations collected between 1991 and 2016 (see larger citation for map of population boundaries). For each population, models were developed at two life stages (breeding and summer) and at two hierarchical scales (landscape and patch). We used multi-scale and seasonal resource selection analyses to quantify relationships between environmental conditions and sites used by animals. These resource selection function models relied on spatial data describing habitat conditions at different spatial scales, where environmental conditions differ, and habitat selection occur at different spatial scales for different available resources.