Introduction

Ecological Forecasting Initiative 2025 Conference, May 19-22, 2025	Submissions for late-breaking posters and registration are now open for the EFI2025 Conference. Registration closes on April 14. NOTE: We are keeping the early bird registration fee throughout the full registration period until April 14 Individuals are invited from academia, government agencies, industry and the non-profit sectors to come together in person at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia to share cutting-edge research and applications in ecological forecasting broadly. There will be 3.5 days with keynote addresses, short research presentations and panel discussions, a poster session, working group activities, training workshops, open time for networking, and a field trip into the mountains. Conference details and links for registration and poster abstract submission are available at https://bit.ly/efi2025
New EFI Blog Post!	The blog post is on "Resources for Reviewing Code" The post shares resources individuals in the Education and Theory working groups developed and found useful when reviewing code including - An overview of why to review code or have your code reviewed and background about the resources - Resources developed and tested by blog co-authors including a project overview template and code review checklist template - Pain points to be aware of and suggestions for how to manage them in the review process - Resources from SORTEE (Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) and other resources the EFI working groups have found useful
	We are in the fourth round of the Statistical Methods Webinar series co-hosted by EFI and the ESA Statistical Ecology Section! On March 3, 2025 Sara Beery and Timm Haucke (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) presented on "Ecological Modeling with AI and Python." A recording of the presentation is available at https://youtu.be/Sc1QrscYBTA The next seminar will be on May 5, 2025 at noon US ET by Tiago Marques (University of St. Andrews) on "Distance Sampling Applications in Ecology." Register for the seminar at: https://bit.ly/3TzTDFs 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 or Python 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.
European EFI Chapter Monthly Seminars	The European EFI Chapter (EEFI) monthly seminars series is scheduled from now to June 2025 and is available on the EEFI Seminars webpage! The next call will be on 9th April by Shane Morris (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna) on "Forecasting the energy and water consequences of global change on animals using biophysical models". Add the seminar to your calendar with this Google calendar link. Find other recordings and details on the EEFI Seminars webpage.
Oceania EFI Chapter Monthly Seminars	The Oceania EFI Chapter (OEFI) has a new schedule of calls for 2025! On 20 May 2025 at 3pm Sydney time there will be a virutal seminar on ‘Recent advances in satellite earth observation based water quality monitoring and forecasting in complex coastal ocean waters’ by Foivos Diakogiannis, Eric Lehmann, and Nagur Cherukuru (CSIRO). Add the call to your calendar with this Google calendar link. Other virtual seminar calls will be on 24 July, 24 September, and 20 November at 3pm Sydney times. More details to come. Recordings from previous OEFI calls are available at https://ecoforecast.org/oceania-ecological-forecasting-initiative/
AGU & ESA Joint Special Collection Call for Papers	This special collection jointly hosted by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Ecological Society of America (ESA) focuses on the emerging field of ecological forecasting, which involves predicting the future states of ecosystems. The issue welcomes contributions that use novel methodologies, interdisciplinary approaches, real-time data integration, and multi-forecast synthesis to enhance the accuracy, uncertainty representation, applicability, and equality of ecological forecasts. Submissions can be included in multiple AGU and ESA journals, see the full list of journals and details here: https://ecoforecast.org/special-issue-ecological-forecasting-in-the-earth-system/ Submission deadline: October 31, 2026
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.
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)