USGS North American Packrat Midden Database, Version 5.0

This data release contains the data tables for the USGS North American Packrat Midden Database (version 5.0). This version of the Midden Database contains data for 3,331 packrat midden samples obtained from published sources (journal articles, book chapters, theses, dissertations, government and private industry reports, conference proceedings) as well as unpublished data contributed by researchers. Compared to the previous version of the Midden Database (i.e., ver. 4), this version of the database (ver. 5.0) has been expanded to include more precise midden-sample site location data, calibrated midden-sample age data, and plant functional type (PFT) assignments for the taxa in each midden sample. In addition, World Wildlife Fund ecoregion and major habitat type (MHT) assignments (Ricketts and others, 1999) and modern climate and bioclimate data (New and others, 2002; Davis and others, 2017) are provided for each midden-sample site location. References Davis, T.W., Prentice, I.C., Stocker, B.D., Thomas, R.T., Whitley, R.J., Wang, H., Evans, B.J., Gallego-Sala, A.V., Sykes, M.T., and Cramer, W., 2017, Simple process-led algorithms for simulating habitats (SPLASH v.1.0): robust indices of radiation, evapotranspiration and plant-available moisture. Geoscientific Model Development, v. 10, p. 689-708, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-689-2017. New, M., Lister, D., Hulme, M., and Makin, I., 2002, A high-resolution data set of surface climate over global land areas: Climate Research, v. 21, p. 1?25, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg. Ricketts, T.H., Dinerstein, E., Olson, D.M., Loucks, C.J., Eichbaum, W., DellaSala, D., Kavanagh, K., Hedao, P., Hurley, P.T., Carney, K.M., Abell, R., and Walters, S., 1999, Terrestrial ecoregions of North America?A conservation assessment: Washington, D.C., Island Press, 485 p.