Study Design and Methods
WildSNaP is a large-scale, spatially replicated study of factors influencing use of solar arrays by a broad spectrum of wildlife taxa across a large number of sites in Arkansas and surrounding regions. We are sampling across a large number of solar sites, including sites under native vegetation management and traditional mown grass or gravel management. Each site has a nearby paired agricultural control sites (hayfield, cattle pasture, row crop) chosen to be typical of pre-installation conditions.



Our wildlife surveys target a wide breadth of taxonomic groups (birds, bats, terrestrial mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and pollinators) and follow a multi-taxa community occupancy approach, allowing us to compare wildlife occupancy and species richness between Native Solar, traditional solar, and comparison agricultural sites, as well as evaluate of species-specific, taxonomic group-specific, and ecological guild-specific responses to site, management, and landscape covariates.