William M. Janousek Gavin G. Cotterill Oliva Lobo Eric K. Cole Sarah R. Dewey Tabitha A. Graves 20260415 tabular digital data Reston, VA U.S. Geological Survey https://doi.org/10.5066/P14KSJQM William M. Janousek Gavin G. Cotterill Oliva Lobo Eric K. Cole Sarah R. Dewey Tabitha A. Graves 2025 publication San Francisco, California PLOS One https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0345546 This data is a compilation of elk aggregation metrics (inter-animal distance, proximity rate, and kernel density contour area) calculated using GPS collar data from elk belonging to the Jackson and West Green River herds in western Wyoming, USA. The data represents two seasonal time periods (high- and low-density) for animals from each herd. Time periods of inference vary by herd and density level. Data from the Jackson herd is from March 2019 and July 2017, for high- and low-density respectively. Data from the West Green River herd is from October 2006 and April 2006, for high- and low-density periods respectively. This data can be used to investigate the number of GPS collared individuals needed to accurately estimate herd aggregation metrics. 200604 200610 201707 201903 ground condition Complete None planned Wyoming -111.0500 -104.0500 45.0000 40.9900 ISO 19115 Topic Category biota USGS Thesaurus wildlife None Density Contact Rates Proximity Rates Inter-animal Distance Kernel Density Estimate USGS Metadata Identifier USGS:68814f6fd4be0232bdf28ebe Common geographic areas Wyoming Grand Teton National Park National Elk Refuge Fossil Butte National Monument USGS Biocomplexity Thesaurus Ungulates Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) 2025 website https://www.itis.gov/ Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) Environmental DNA analysis The target species was identified using environmental DNA sampling. Kingdom Animalia Subkingdom Bilateria Infrakingdom Deuterostomia Phylum Chordata Subphylum Vertebrata Infraphylum Gnathostomata Superclass Tetrapoda Class Mammalia Subclass Theria Infraclass Eutheria Order Artiodactyla Family Cervidae Subfamily Cervinae Genus Cervus Species Cervus elaphus Subspecies Cervus elaphus canadensis No access constraints. Please see 'Distribution Information' for details. These data are marked with a Creative Common CC0 1.0 Universal License. These data are in the public domain and do not have any use constraints. Users are advised to read the dataset's metadata thoroughly to understand appropriate use and data limitations. William M Janousek USGS - MIDCONTINENT REGION Biologist mailing and physical

W.A Franke College of Forestry and Conservation, W.A Franke College of Forestry and Conservation

Missoula MT 59812 406-888-7994 wjanousek@usgs.gov We thank the Grand Teton Association, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fossil Butte National Monument, BLM Kemmerer Field Office, Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and the Bridger-Teton National Forest for supporting GPS collar deployment on the National Elk Refuge and Fossil Butte National Monument. Data represent derived summary metrics from raw elk GPS collar data. GPS collar data was processed to remove individuals with poor preforming (low fix rate) collars. For the JKSN herd we excluded collars with fix rates below 0.95. Due to declining fix rate over time in the WGR herd, we calculated the rolling seven-day average fix rate for each collar and when the average fell below 0.75, we excluded all subsequent days from our analysis. Data fall within expected ranges and have been checked for duplication and omission. Data represent three aggregation metrics derived from GPS collar data for two herds of elk in western Wyoming. Raw GPS coordinate data is not included in this dataset. We used raw GPS collar location data from two elk herds and for each herd-density period-metric combination, we randomly sampled collared elk, incrementing between two and the maximum number of collared elk and resampled 1,000 times with replacement per increment while calculating aggregation metrics. All aggregation metrics were calculated using the wildagg R package (Janousek et al. 2021); specifically the interdist, prox, and kde functions to generate the inter-animal distances, proximity rates, and kernel density estimates respectively. Janousek, W.M. and T.A. Graves. 2021. wildagg: Wildlife Aggregation Estimation and Visualization. U.S. Geological Survey software release. Reston, Va. https://doi.org/10.5066/P9DTQEJS. 20230417 Metric_subsamples_kde_contours.csv Comma Separated Value (CSV) file containing data. Producer Defined herd Herd identity Producer Defined jksn Jackson elk herd Producer defined wgr West Green River elk herd Producer defined density Density time period Producer Defined high High density period Producer defined low Low density period Producer defined n Number of GPS collared elk in sample estimate Producer Defined 2 45 number of GPS collared elk kde90 Area for 90% contour of kernel density estimate. Producer Defined 0.791921351 11081.26741 km squared kde70 Area for 70% contour of kernel density estimate. Producer Defined 0.448155557 5859.519664 km squared kde50 Area for 50% contour of kernel density estimate. Producer Defined 0.253933414 3364.980141 km squared Metric_subsamples_proximity_interdistance.csv Comma Separated Value (CSV) file containing data. Producer Defined herd Herd identity Producer Defined jksn Jackson elk herd Producer defined wgr West Green River elk herd Producer defined density Density time period Producer Defined high High density period Producer defined low Low density period Producer defined n Number of GPS collared elk in sample estimate Producer Defined 2 45 number of GPS collared elk interdistance Inter-animal distance (km) Producer Defined 0.011081223 167.9881138 km proximity Proximity rate (proportion of time in a day pairs of individuals spend within 500m) Producer Defined 0.0 1.0 fractional percentage Tabular data of inter-animal distance, proximity rate, and kernel density contour area calculated using GPS collar data from elk belonging to the Jackson and West Green River herds in western Wyoming, USA, across two seasonal time periods representing times of high- and low-density. Janousek, W.M., Cotterill, G.G., Lobo, O., Cole, E.K., Dewey, S.R. and T.A. Graves, 2025, Estimates of Elk Aggregation Metrics Calculated Across Varying Sample Sizes from Two Herds in Western Wyoming, USA: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P14KSJQM. U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase mailing address

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Denver CO 80225 1-888-275-8747 sciencebase@usgs.gov Unless otherwise stated, all data, metadata and related materials are considered to satisfy the quality standards relative to the purpose for which the data were collected. Although these data and associated metadata have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and approved for release by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data for other purposes, nor on all computer systems, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Digital Data https://doi.org/10.5066/P14KSJQM None 20260415 GS-NOROCK Data Steward U.S. Geological Survey Data Steward mailing

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Bozeman MT 59715 406-994-5034 406-994-6556 norock_data_steward@usgs.gov FGDC Biological Data Profile of the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata FGDC-STD-001.1-1999