Today, I solved my first problem (thanks Jen!) and successfully projected my data so that I could begin running spatial statistic analyses. My data went from GCS_WGS_1984 (unprojected) to NAD_1983_StatePlane_Alaska_1_FIPS_5001 which will allow for improved accuracy in spatial calculations for whale sighting data in southeastern Alaska. I ran an Average Nearest Neighbor analysis on humpback whales sightings in southeastern Alaska and found that the observed nearest neighbor distance was significantly smaller than the expected value. This significant difference is most likely due to the complex geography of southeastern Alaska which creates a clustering of individuals. I also learned that results of my spatial statistics analyses will be presented in meters. I look forward to running additional analyses next week!

My spatial problem is that my data were not collected randomly and field efforts were influenced by predicted habitat use or confirmed sightings of whales. Thus, what appear to be hot spots or patterns of habitat use within southeastern Alaska, might actually be areas of increased field effort. This will undoubtedly complicate my analyses and I continue to turn to the Arc Blog (and Dori) for answers.

We have talked about creating a random sample of whales in southeastern Alaska and comparing their patterns of habitat “use” to what we actually have in our data. Stay tuned for more on that…