My question is very similar to Summing up values of neighbouring polygons using QGIS?. However, I would like to be able to perform the analysis within ArcGIS Desktop if possible.
What I would like to do is calculate the percentage of blocks containing animal sightings surrounding a block and add the sum as a new field.
For example If we look at block 1 it is surrounded by 6 other blocks (224,2,7,6,5, and 227). The blocks that are highlighted in yellow are the blocks that actually contain animal sighting data. Block 1 has 1 neighboring block containing animal sightings; therefore, the new field I would like to add to block 1 would be .16 (1/6). Then we would move onto block 2 and perform the same calculation and so on.
I would have to perform this for different species and years and I seek ideas on how to automate this process.