Introduction

2024 Social Science and Ecoforecasting Planning Award	Congratulations to the five teams that were awarded the Social Science and Ecoforecasting Planning Award! The Review Committee was thrilled to see the interest in this inaugural round of the award and the diversity of quality project topics submitted and social science backgrounds represented. Find information about the project leads, group members, and project descriptions HERE.
	Registration is now open for the fourth round of the Statistical Methods Webinar series co-hosted by EFI and the ESA Statistical Ecology Section! On November 4 at noon US ET, Dr. Jonathan Babyn from the University of Newfoundland will present "A brief introduction to Close-Kin Mark-Recapture (CKMR)". CKMR is a method to estimate abundance, overall survival and other demographic parameters based on probabilities of capturing the close-kin of a sampled individual such as parent, offspring or half-sibling. Register for the call at https://bit.ly/3B9maLH Recordings and resources from all the webinars are available on the Statistical Methods Seminar webpage . Each seminar is 1.5 hour in length and is led by an invited speaker with expertise on a given topic or statistical method. Speakers spend the first part of the webinar presenting a project where they used the method, followed by sharing R code or related packages used for the statistical method. Presenters walk through the code, taking time to describe common pitfalls or stumbling blocks for performing the method and visualizing results.
EFI2025 Conference	We are looking forward to convening the EFI community at the EFI 2025 Conference on May 19-22, 2025 at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia! Individuals are invited from academia, government agencies, industry and the non-profit sectors to come together in person to share cutting-edge research and applications in ecological forecasting broadly. There will be three days with keynote addresses, short research presentations and panel discussions, a poster session, open time for networking, and a field trip into the mountains. The fourth day will be time for working group activities and training workshops. Conference details are available at https://ecoforecast.org/efi-2025-conference/
European EFI Chapter Monthly Seminars	The European EFI Chapter (EEFI) monthly seminars series is scheduled from now to April 2025 and is available on the EEFI Seminars webpage! The next seminar will be on 13th November 2024 at 1pm CET by Guillermo Fandos (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) "Data and modelling challenges for biodiversity dynamic predictions  numerical weather predictions." Add the seminar to your calendar with this link. There is no recording for the October call by Nadja Weisshaupt (Finnish Meteorological Institute) who presented on "A gridded fuzzy-logic bird migration model based on citizen science data and numerical weather predictions". The recording from the September seminar by Jaana Bäck (University of Helsinki) on "eLTER research infrastructure – what is there for ecological forecasting community? is now available at https://youtu.be/rlM-if6Dwrc. Find other recordings and details on the EEFI Seminars webpage.
Oceania EFI Chapter Monthly Seminars	There is one more Oceania EFI Chapter (OEFI) seminars scheduled for 2024! 26th November - Matthew Rees (CSIRO) will present on "Forecasting mouse plagues in Australian grain growing regions" Register at: https://bit.ly/4gdbmvO The November call will not be recorded so plan to join in person. The recording from the 30th September seminar by Yan Zheng (Southern University of Science and Technology China) on "Harmful algal bloom forecasting from a land-ocean continuum perspective" is now available at https://youtu.be/AVqTgk-ZwPg Recordings from other calls are available at https://ecoforecast.org/oceania-ecological-forecasting-initiative/
See the latest EFI paper!	"Defining model complexity: An ecological perspective" came out in May 2024 in Meteorological Applications https://doi.org/10.1002/met.2202. This paper was written by EFI Student Association members! Congratulations to co-authors Charlotte Malmborg (Boston U), Alyssa Willson (U of Notre Dame), L.M. Bradley (Emory U), Meghan Beatty (U of Florida), Dave Klinges (U of Florida), Gerbrand Koren (Utrecht U), Abigail Lewis (Virginia Tech), Kayode Oshinubi (Northern Arizona U), and Whitney Woelmer (Virginia Tech)
Forecasting Challenges	There are now three Forecasting Challenges available for anyone to participate and submit forecasts to. 1) EFI NEON Ecological Forecast Challenge. Target data for: aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial carbon and water fluxes, tick populations, beetle communities, and phenology. 2) EFI-USGS River Chlorophyll Forecasting Challenge. Target data for: river chlorophyll a 3) Virginia Ecoforecast Reservoir Analysis (VERA) Forecasting Challenge. Target data for: 3 physical variables, 5 chemical variables, 2 biological variables and a range of additional variables that can be used for forecasting but that are not part of the focal variables evaluated with the VERA Challenge
	The EFI-NEON Research Coordination Network is an NSF-funded grant to create a community of practice that builds capacity for ecological forecasting by leveraging NEON data products. Forecast challenges can be used for classroom instruction or the cyberinfrastructure is now set up to support stand-alone Forecasting Challenges that allow people to submit forecasts that are checked for alignment with the metadata standards, scored, cataloged, and visualized on a dashboard for non-NEON data streams. Email info@ecoforecast.org if you want more information about using the Forecasting Challenges in your classroom or you want to set up a stand-alone Challenge.
	About: Mission Statement, Shared Values & Principles, Member Profiles and Forecasting Projects
	Working Groups Organized Around Seven Cross-Cutting Themes: Theory; Statistical Methods & Tools; Cyberinfrastructure; Education; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Translation and Actionable Science; Standards for Forecast Output and Metadata
	Resources: Publications, Educational and Multimedia Resources, Videos
	Stay Connected: Our Listserv shares high-level announcements, our Blog highlights forecasting activities going on, you can follow us on Twitter @ecoforecast, or you can request to join our community of forecasters on Slack (send request to eco4cast.initiative@gmail.com)