Exposure type

Option	Description
Binary	Two‐level (treated vs control).
Categorical	Multiple distinct groups.
Continuous / Time-varying	Numeric variables fluctuating by site and/or in time.
Compositional	Parts of a whole (e.g., species proportions).
Multivariate	Multiple simultaneous exposures.
Others	Specialty types (e.g., network exposures).

Definition

The form of the treatment or exposure variable(s) that the method should accommodate.

Explanation

Some methods only handle binary treatments; others extend to multi‐level, continuous, time‐varying, or compositional exposures. for instance

Tools/rationale for helping assessment

Inspect how your exposure variable is defined: is it binary (presence/absence), categorical (habitat types), continuous (temperature), compositional (soil nutrients), or multivariate?

Example

I have continuous canopy‐height measurements as response variable and categorical land‐cover classes as treatment → I will choose a method supporting Categorical exposures, or possibly Compositional if I compute LC class proportions in buffers.