EcoService Models Library (ESML)
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Compare EMs
Which comparison is best for me?EM Variables by Variable Role
One quick way to compare ecological models (EMs) is by comparing their variables. Predictor variables show what kinds of influences a model is able to account for, and what kinds of data it requires. Response variables show what information a model is capable of estimating.
This first comparison shows the names (and units) of each EM’s variables, side-by-side, sorted by variable role. Variable roles in ESML are as follows:
- Predictor Variables
- Time- or Space-Varying Variables
- Constants and Parameters
- Intermediate (Computed) Variables
- Response Variables
- Computed Response Variables
- Measured Response Variables
EM Variables by Category
A second way to use variables to compare EMs is by focusing on the kind of information each variable represents. The top-level categories in the ESML Variable Classification Hierarchy are as follows:
- Policy Regarding Use or Management of Ecosystem Resources
- Land Surface (or Water Body Bed) Cover, Use or Substrate
- Human Demographic Data
- Human-Produced Stressor or Enhancer of Ecosystem Goods and Services Production
- Ecosystem Attributes and Potential Supply of Ecosystem Goods and Services
- Non-monetary Indicators of Human Demand, Use or Benefit of Ecosystem Goods and Services
- Monetary Values
Besides understanding model similarities, sorting the variables for each EM by these 7 categories makes it easier to see if the compared models can be linked using similar variables. For example, if one model estimates an ecosystem attribute (in Category 5), such as water clarity, as a response variable, and a second model uses a similar attribute (also in Category 5) as a predictor of recreational use, the two models can potentially be used in tandem. This comparison makes it easier to spot potential model linkages.
All EM Descriptors
This selection allows a more detailed comparison of EMs by model characteristics other than their variables. The 50-or-so EM descriptors for each model are presented, side-by-side, in the following categories:
- EM Identity and Description
- EM Modeling Approach
- EM Locations, Environments, Ecology
- EM Ecosystem Goods and Services (EGS) potentially modeled, by classification system
EM Descriptors by Modeling Concepts
This feature guides the user through the use of the following seven concepts for comparing and selecting EMs:
- Conceptual Model
- Modeling Objective
- Modeling Context
- Potential for Model Linkage
- Feasibility of Model Use
- Model Certainty
- Model Structural Information
Though presented separately, these concepts are interdependent, and information presented under one concept may have relevance to other concepts as well.
EM Identity and Description
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
EM Short Name
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C Sequestration and De-N, Tampa Bay, FL, USA | Coral taxa and land development, St.Croix, VI, USA | P8 UCM | C sequestration in grassland restoration, England | EcoSim II - method | CAESAR landscape evolution model |
EM Full Name
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Value of Carbon Sequestration and Denitrification benefits, Tampa Bay, FL, USA | Coral taxa richness and land development, St.Croix, Virgin Islands, USA | P8 Urban Catchment model method | Carbon sequestration in grassland diversity restoration, England | EcoSim II - method | Embedding reach-scale fluvial dynamics within the CAESAR cellular automaton landscape evolution model |
EM Source or Collection
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US EPA | US EPA | None | None | None | None |
EM Source Document ID
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186 | 96 |
377 ?Comment:Published to the web. Previously versions prepared for EPA. |
396 | 448 | 468 |
Document Author
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Russell, M. and Greening, H. | Oliver, L. M., Lehrter, J. C. and Fisher, W. S. | Walker, W. Jr., and J.D. Walker | De Deyn, G. B., R. S. Shiel, N. J. Ostle, N. P. McNamara, S. Oakley, I. Young, C. Freeman, N. Fenner, H. Quirk, and R. D. Bardgett | Walters, C., Pauly, D., Christensen, V., and J.F. Kitchell | Van De Wiel, M. J., Coulthard, T. J., Macklin, M. G., & Lewin, J. |
Document Year
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2013 | 2011 | 2015 | 2011 | 2000 | 2007 |
Document Title
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Estimating benefits in a recovering estuary: Tampa Bay, Florida | Relating landscape development intensity to coral reef condition in the watersheds of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands | P8 Urban Catchment Model Version 3.5 | Additional carbon sequestration benefits of grassland diversity restoration | Representing density dependent consequences of life history strategies in aquatic ecostems: EcoSim II | Embedding reach-scale fluvial dynamics within the CAESAR cellular automaton landscape evolution model |
Document Status
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Peer reviewed and published | Peer reviewed and published | Not peer reviewed but is published (explain in Comment) | Peer reviewed and published | Peer reviewed and published | Peer reviewed and published |
Comments on Status
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Published journal manuscript | Published journal manuscript | Published report | Published journal manuscript | Published journal manuscript | Published journal manuscript |
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
Not applicable | Not applicable | http://www.wwwalker.net/p8/v35/webhelp/splash.htm | Not applicable | https://ecopath.org/downloads/ | http://www.coulthard.org.uk/ | |
Contact Name
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M. Russell | Leah Oliver | William Walker Jr., PhD | Gerlinde B. De Deyn | Carl Walters | Marco J. Van De Wiel |
Contact Address
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US EPA, Gulf Ecology Division, 1 Sabine Island Dr, Gulf Breeze, FL 32563, USA | National Health and Environmental Research Effects Laboratory | Concord, Massachusetts | Dept. of Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, P O Box 40, 6666 ZG Heteren, The Netherlands | Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada, V6T 1Z4 | Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada |
Contact Email
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Russell.Marc@epamail.epa.gov | leah.oliver@epa.gov | bill@wwwalker.net | g.dedeyn@nioo.knaw.nl; gerlindede@gmail.com | c.walters@oceans.ubc.ca | mvandew3@uwo.ca |
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
Summary Description
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AUTHOR'S DESCRIPTION: "...we examine the change in the production of ecosystem goods produced as a result of restoration efforts and potential relative cost savings for the Tampa Bay community from seagrass expansion (more than 3,100 ha) and coastal marsh and mangrove restoration (∼600 ha), since 1990… The objectives of this article are to explore the roles that ecological processes and resulting ecosystem goods have in maintaining healthy estuarine systems by (1) quantifying the production of specific ecosystem goods in a subtropical estuarine system and (2) determining potential cost savings of improved water quality and increased habitat in a recovering estuary." (pp. 2) | AUTHOR'S DESCRIPTION: "In this exploratory comparison, stony coral condition was related to watershed LULC and LDI values. We also compared the capacity of other potential human activity indicators to predict coral reef condition using multivariate analysis." (294) | Author description: " P8 simulates the generation and transport of stormwater runoff pollutants in urban watersheds. Continuous water-balance and mass-balance calculations are performed on a user-defined drainage system consisting of the following elements: - Watersheds (<= 250 nonpoint source areas) - Devices (<=75 runoff storage/treatment areas or BMP's) - Particles (<= 5 fractions with different settling velocities) - Water Quality Components (<= 10 associated with particles) Simulations are driven by hourly precipitation and daily air temperature time series. Runoff contributions from snowmelt are also simulated. 'P8' abbreviates "Program for Predicting Polluting Particle Passage Thru Pits, Puddles, and Ponds", which more or less captures the basic features and functions of the model. It has been developed for use by engineers and planners in designing and evaluating runoff treatment schemes for existing or proposed urban developments. Design objectives are typically expressed in terms of percentage reduction in suspended solids or other water quality component. Despite its limitations, P8 has been used by state and local regulatory agencies as a consistent framework for evaluating proposed developments. Depending on applications, other models could be either too simple (easily used, but ignoring important factors) or too complex (requiring considerable site-specific data and/or user expertise). P8 attempts to strike a balance to between those extremes. Predicted water quality components include total suspended solids (sum of the individual particle fractions), total phosphorus, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, copper, lead, zinc, and total hydrocarbons. Simulated BMP types include detention ponds (wet, dry, extended), infiltration basins, swales, buffer strips, or other devices with user-specified stage/discharge curves and infiltration rates. A simple water budget algorithm can be used to estimate groundwater storage and stream base flow in watershed-scale applications. Initial calibrations were based upon runoff quality and particle settling velocity data collected under the EPA's Nationwide Urban Runoff Program (Athayede et al., 1983). Calibrations to impervious area runoff parameters for Wisconsin watersheds have been subsequently developed. Inputs are structured in terms which should be familiar to planners and engineers involved in hydrologic evaluation. Several tabular and graphic output formats are provided. " | ABSTRACT: "A major aim of European agri-environment policy is the management of grassland for botanical diversity conservation and restoration, together with the delivery of ecosystem services including soil carbon (C) sequestration. To test whether management for biodiversity restoration has additional benefits for soil C sequestration, we investigated C and nitrogen (N) accumulation rates in soil and C and N pools in vegetation in a long-term field experiment (16 years) in which fertilizer application and plant seeding were manipulated. In addition, the abundance of the legume Trifolium pratense was manipulated for the last 2 years. To unravel the mechanisms underlying changes in soil C and N pools, we also tested for effects of diversity restoration management on soil structure, ecosystem respiration and soil enzyme activities…" AUTHOR'S DESCRIPTION: "Measurements were made on 36 plots of 3 x 3 m comprising two management treatments (and their controls) in a long-term multifactorial grassland restoration experiment which have successfully increased plant species diversity, namely the cessation of NPK fertilizer application and the addition of seed mixtures…" | ABSTRACT: " EcoSim II uses results from the Ecopath procedure for trophic mass-balance analysis to define biomass dynamics models for predicting temporal change in exploited ecosystems. Key populations can be repre- sented in further detail by using delay-difference models to account for both biomass and numbers dynamics. A major problem revealed by linking the population and biomass dynamics models is in representation of population responses to changes in food supply; simple proportional growth and reproductive responses lead to unrealistic predic- tions of changes in mean body size with changes in fishing mortality. EcoSim II allows users to specify life history mechanisms to avoid such unrealistic predictions: animals may translate changes in feed- ing rate into changes in reproductive rather than growth rates, or they may translate changes in food availability into changes in foraging time that in turn affects predation risk. These options, along with model relationships for limits on prey availabil- ity caused by predation avoidance tactics, tend to cause strong compensatory responses in modeled populations. It is likely that such compensatory responses are responsible for our inability to find obvious correlations between interacting trophic components in fisheries time-series data. But Eco- sim II does not just predict strong compensatory responses: it also suggests that large piscivores may be vulnerable to delayed recruitment collapses caused by increases in prey species that are in turn competitors/predators of juvenile piscivores " | We introduce a new computational model designed to simulate and investigate reach-scale alluvial dynamics within a landscape evolution model. The model is based on the cellular automaton concept, whereby the continued iteration of a series of local process ‘rules’ governs the behaviour of the entire system. The model is a modified version of the CAESAR landscape evolution model, which applies a suite of physically based rules to simulate the entrainment, transport and deposition of sediments. The CAESAR model has been altered to improve the representation of hydraulic and geomorphic processes in an alluvial environment. In-channel and overbank flow, sediment entrainment and deposition, suspended load and bed load transport, lateral erosion and bank failure have all been represented as local cellular automaton rules. Although these rules are relatively simple and straightforward, their combined and repeatedly iterated effect is such that complex, non-linear geomorphological response can be simulated within the model. Examples of such larger-scale, emergent responses include channel incision and aggradation, terrace formation, channel migration and river meandering, formation of meander cutoffs, and transitions between braided and single-thread channel patterns. In the current study, the model is illustrated on a reach of the River Teifi, near Lampeter, Wales, UK. |
Specific Policy or Decision Context Cited
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Restoration of seagrass | Not applicable | None identified | None identified | None | None identified |
Biophysical Context
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Recovering estuary; Seagrass; Coastal fringe; Saltwater marsh; Mangrove | nearshore; <1.5 km offshore; <12 m depth | Urban setting | Lolium perenne-Cynosorus cristatus grassland; The soil is a shallow brown-earth (average depth 28 cm) over limestone of moderate-high residual fertility. | None, Ocean ecosystems | River Teifi, Lampeter, Wales |
EM Scenario Drivers
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Habitat loss or restoration in Tampa Bay Estuary | Not applicable | N/A | Additional benefits due to biodiversity restoration practices | N/A | Varying flow velocities and durations |
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
Method Only, Application of Method or Model Run
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Method + Application | Method + Application | Method Only | Method + Application (multiple runs exist) View EM Runs | Method Only | Method Only |
New or Pre-existing EM?
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New or revised model | New or revised model | New or revised model | New or revised model | New or revised model | New or revised model |
Related EMs (for example, other versions or derivations of this EM) described in ESML
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
Document ID for related EM
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None | None | None | None | None | Doc-467 |
EM ID for related EM
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None | None | None | None | EM-1055 | EM-997 |
EM Modeling Approach
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
EM Temporal Extent
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1982-2010 | 2006-2007 | Not applicable | 1990-2007 | Not applicable | Not applicable |
EM Time Dependence
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time-stationary | time-stationary | time-dependent | time-stationary | time-dependent | time-dependent |
EM Time Reference (Future/Past)
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Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | both | Not applicable |
EM Time Continuity
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Not applicable | Not applicable | discrete | Not applicable |
discrete ?Comment:Modeller dependent |
continuous |
EM Temporal Grain Size Value
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Not applicable | Not applicable | 1 | Not applicable | 1 | Not applicable |
EM Temporal Grain Size Unit
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Not applicable | Not applicable | Hour | Not applicable | Day | Not applicable |
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
Bounding Type
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Physiographic or Ecological | Physiographic or Ecological | Not applicable | Other | Other | Watershed/Catchment/HUC |
Spatial Extent Name
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Tampa Bay Estuary | St.Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands | Not applicable | Colt Park meadows, Ingleborough National Nature Reserve, northern England | Not applicable | River Teifi |
Spatial Extent Area (Magnitude)
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1000-10,000 km^2. | 10-100 km^2 | Not applicable | <1 ha | Not applicable | 1000-10,000 km^2. |
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
EM Spatial Distribution
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spatially distributed (in at least some cases) | spatially lumped (in all cases) | spatially lumped (in all cases) | spatially distributed (in at least some cases) | spatially lumped (in all cases) | spatially lumped (in all cases) |
Spatial Grain Type
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area, for pixel or radial feature | Not applicable | Not applicable | area, for pixel or radial feature | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Spatial Grain Size
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1 ha | Not applicable | Not applicable | 3 m x 3 m | Not applicable | Not applicable |
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
EM Computational Approach
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Analytic | Analytic | Numeric | Analytic | Analytic | Analytic |
EM Determinism
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deterministic | deterministic | deterministic | stochastic | deterministic | deterministic |
Statistical Estimation of EM
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EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
Model Calibration Reported?
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Yes | Yes | Yes | Not applicable | No | Not applicable |
Model Goodness of Fit Reported?
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No | Yes | Not applicable | Not applicable | No | Not applicable |
Goodness of Fit (metric| value | unit)
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None |
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None | None | None | None |
Model Operational Validation Reported?
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No | No | Not applicable | No | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Model Uncertainty Analysis Reported?
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No | Yes | Not applicable | No | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Model Sensitivity Analysis Reported?
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No | No | Not applicable | No | Not applicable | Not applicable |
Model Sensitivity Analysis Include Interactions?
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Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable |
EM Locations, Environments, Ecology
Terrestrial location (Classification hierarchy: Continent > Country > U.S. State [United States only])
EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
None | None | None |
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None |
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Marine location (Classification hierarchy: Realm > Region > Province > Ecoregion)
EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
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None | None | None | None |
Centroid Lat/Long (Decimal Degree)
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
Centroid Latitude
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27.95 | 17.75 | Not applicable | 54.2 | Not applicable | 52.04 |
Centroid Longitude
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-82.47 | -64.75 | Not applicable | -2.35 | Not applicable | -4.39 |
Centroid Datum
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WGS84 | NAD83 | Not applicable | WGS84 | Not applicable | WGS84 |
Centroid Coordinates Status
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Estimated | Estimated | Not applicable | Provided | Not applicable | Estimated |
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
EM Environmental Sub-Class
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Near Coastal Marine and Estuarine | Near Coastal Marine and Estuarine | Terrestrial Environment (sub-classes not fully specified) | Agroecosystems | Grasslands | Open Ocean and Seas | Rivers and Streams |
Specific Environment Type
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Subtropical Estuary | stony coral reef | Urban catchments | fertilized grassland (historically hayed) | Pelagic | River |
EM Ecological Scale
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Ecological scale is finer than that of the Environmental Sub-class | Ecological scale is finer than that of the Environmental Sub-class | Ecological scale is finer than that of the Environmental Sub-class | Ecological scale corresponds to the Environmental Sub-class | Ecological scale corresponds to the Environmental Sub-class | Ecological scale corresponds to the Environmental Sub-class |
Scale of differentiation of organisms modeled
EM ID
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EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
EM Organismal Scale
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Not applicable | Guild or Assemblage | Not applicable | Community |
Other (Comment) ?Comment:Varied levels of taxonomic order |
Not applicable |
Taxonomic level and name of organisms or groups identified
EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
None Available |
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None Available | None Available |
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None Available |
EnviroAtlas URL
EM Ecosystem Goods and Services (EGS) potentially modeled, by classification system
CICES v 4.3 - Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (Section > Division > Group > Class)
EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
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<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/national-ecosystem-services-classification-system-nescs-plus">National Ecosystem Services Classification System (NESCS) Plus</a>
(Environmental Subclass > Ecological End-Product (EEP) > EEP Subclass > EEP Modifier)
EM-195 | EM-260 | EM-656 |
EM-735 ![]() |
EM-964 | EM-998 |
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None | None |
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