Hibernation duration
Latitude (Northing; β = - 0.22, p-value = 0.85), elevation (DEM; β = -0.03, p-value = 0.04), and the number of days in frost (Daysfrost; β = 0.83, p-value< 0.001) best predicted hibernation duration across the study area (AICc = 489.29; Table S4). There was no spatial correlation of these predictions (Moran’s I = -0.0036, p-value =0.354) and thus no spatial corrections were needed. The selected model outperformed the original a priori estimate of the duration of winter (Original, ∆AIC 19.06).
Given the best model, median predicted hibernation duration was ~ 179 days (mean = 169.16, sd = 45.36). Maximum hibernation duration across the study extent was estimated at ~289 days in the upper portions of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, 45 days longer than the longest observation in the training data (from Manitoba, Canada, 19; Figure 2). Despite this, 95% of all cells had a predicted hibernation duration below 225 days, and only 5% were below 80 days (Table S5).