Waterborne scientists understand the biological considerations with respect to predicting the presence, exposure or behavior of species in relation to applications of pesticides. Models such as TerrPlant, SIP, STIR, T-REX and T-Herps are used in a regulatory environment to predict exposure in birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. Modeling biological organisms also includes individual based models, population or community models, and species distribution modeling.
Species Distribution Modeling
In many cases we need to understand the current range of a species when such data are unavailable. Species distribution modeling (SDM) allows us to create a probability distribution of suitable habitat over a given area based on point locations of species occurrence and spatially explicit data on environmental variables. It can be used to predict current species distributions within their known range, rank potential habitat outside of the known range (e.g. invasive species risk, endangered species), understand the types of environments a species inhabits, and indicate historical and future distributions to understand the effects of climate change on species range.