Without effective management, today’s endangered species face a very real risk of extinction. These species have reached their precarious status due to a range of stressors—nearly all driven by human activity—that have led to depressed populations and diminished their capacity for recovery. Preserving these species requires a deep understanding of their ecology and minimizing additional environmental contamination. Our scientists’ knowledge of ecology and ecotoxicology provides the foundation for developing sound conservation strategies. Yet ironically, the very fact that these species are endangered restricts our ability to study them directly. Their status prevents us from conducting lab or in situ experiments, making it more challenging to assess their responses to emerging threats.

This is where population modeling and Waterborne’s experience with multiple modeling frameworks come in. When direct manipulation and measurement are not viable, computational, mathematical, and statistical modeling techniques, well-informed by empirical observation, provide our scientists with practical utility in both improving fundamental understanding of the systems under study and developing scenario-based forecasting abilities. 



Developing these models requires accurately accounting for all pertinent aspects of the species' ecology and physiology within the model structure. Therefore, when developing population models... 

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Anyone who has studied biology has come across this sentence: Ecology is the study of how living organisms interact with each other and their environment. This simple definition, actually hides a tremendous complexity that’s at the root of our ecological modeling work. To begin with, the broad “environment” encompasses physical surroundings which can be hard to understand on their own. All one has to do is consider the hydrodynamic laws that explain river flow or the climate and its unpredictable changes at various spatial scales to understand that “environment” is an overly simple descriptor. Then there are all the interactions among organisms themselves: competition, mating, predation, parasitism, and mutualism, just to name a few. Each of these interactions can potentially influence the others in a never-ending feedback loop. Considered together, the simple “environment” is revealed to be a complex world where scientists, particularly ecological modelers, thrive. 

A crucial tool for chemical risk assessment and environmental management, ecological modeling provides a means for investigating complex interactions of environmental stressors and their impact on natural resources. To get to the heart of those complex interactions, Waterborne’s scientists develop and apply mathematical models to describe an ecological system. Through ecological modeling, we can examine a network of interactions and run various simulations without expending costly resources required for laboratory or field studies.

Similar to how an artist would draw a human body by first studying how each part works together, our ecological modelers begin by identifying...

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UN Environmental Programme announces ending global plastics pollution as its focus on World Environment Day: Led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) since 1973, World Environment Day has grown into the largest global platform for environmental awareness and action. 

The atmosphere is getting thirstier and it’s making droughts worse – new study: A new study shows that this rising “atmospheric thirst” – also known as atmospheric evaporative demand (AED) – is responsible for about 40% of the increase in drought severity over the last four decades (1981-2022).

Poultry companies said they were no longer polluting Oklahoma’s waters. A federal judge disagrees: A federal judge ruled this week that poultry waste pollution is still hurting Oklahoma waters, and poultry companies are responsible for cleaning up existing pollution and preventing further harm. It's the latest development ina case that's been ongoing for two decades.