Sagebrush projections for greater sage-grouse core areas in Wyoming, USA, 2018-2100

Sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems provide critical habitat for the near-threatened Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), and future loss of sagebrush habitat because of land use change and global climate change is of concern. We used a dynamic additive spatio-temporal model to estimate effects of climate (spring-summer temperatures and precipitation) on sagebrush cover dynamics at 32 sage-grouse management (core) areas in Wyoming, 1985-2018. We then use the fitted models to make probabilistic projections of sagebrush cover in each core area across three time intervals (2018-2040, 2041-2070, 2071-2100) and under three climate change scenarios and weighted averages of 18 Global Circulation Models (ssp126, ssp245, and ssp585), producing 351 netCDF files (USGS_SageCastWY.zip).