In restoration ecology, the majority of ecological models are site-specific and single use.  Comparatively few are generic, applicable by design to a range of systems and scenarios.  Ecological models are seldom applied to the geographical areas, periods of record, and levels of ecological detail necessary to comprehensively simulate ecological resources.  Most ecological models do not connect sequences of events for time periods longer than one year, which limits insights to long-term ecosystem dynamics.  Most investigate one or a few ecological aspects or species of interest and often the subjects modeled are not the actual ecological concern (i.e., investigating habitat as a proxy for populations).  Ecological models are also diverse.  A decadal review of ecological models in the scientific literature identified 9 categories of models with dynamic biogeochemical (30.8%), population dynamics (24.2%), and spatial models (19.9%) comprising the most common types (Jorgensen, 2017, Handbook of environmental and ecological modeling, CRC Press).

EFMSim is a software platform designed to help with these limitations – applying data and computer resources at scale to simulate ecological dynamics.  It is primarily a software to simulate population dynamics though its generic nature allows for inclusion of biogeochemical and other ecological dynamics.  EFMSim applications are inherently spatial and the software includes an embedded Geographic Information System (GIS) that is applied for model inputs, computations, outputs, and visualizations.  And, as a platform, EFMSim is constructed to evolve, accommodating new types of data, logic, and modeling strategies.

A succinct description of EFMSim use would be to make animations of ecosystems.  A slightly longer description would be that EFMSim allows users to create and characterize ecological communities that are simulated in a data-defined virtual environment where they interact with that environment, themselves, and each other.