Ecoregion mapping

For visualizing the ecoregions of Texas we obtained a shapefile from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which included the following 12 ecoregions: Arizona/New Mexico Mountain, Central Great Plains, Chihuahua Deserts, Cross Timbers, East Central Texas Plains, Edwards Plateau, High Plains, South Central Plains, Southern Texas Plains, Southwestern Tablelands, Texas Blackland Prairies, and Western Gulf Coastal Plains [23]. These ecoregions were defined based upon several biotic and abiotic factors such as climate, vegetation, soil type, geology, land use, wildlife, and hydrology [23]. This shapefile was then imported into ArcMap and we overlaid each county where collections occurred in Texas noting the taxa group (coyote = C, Dog = D, gray fox = GF, raccoons = RA, and rodents = R) and the number of collections (Fig 1).

Map of the 12 ecoregions of Texas overlaid with the 23 counties where collections occurred of coyote (C), dog (D), gray fox (GF), raccoon (RA), and rodents (R).