To assess the importance of landscape variation at scales larger
than the LOIs we examine, we consider locations of lowland conifer
stands, snow depth and ecoregion. We term these variables,
regional landscape variables, to contrast our, local, landscape variables.
We use our stand-level GIS data to calculate distance to the nearest lowland conifer stand for each deer density estimate (termedDistance_LC).
This is a measure of the proximity of winter deer shelter (potentially outside the LOIs we consider).
We use data from the Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS) produced by National Snow and Ice Data Center (NOHRSC, 2004) to account for potential effects of snow depth on deer density.