April 15, 2026: Deadline for Abstracts and Travel Scholarships!
The EFI2026 Conference in Toronto, Canada, will take place August 4-7, 2026. The Conference will assemble local, regional, national, and global leaders from the mathematical sciences, environmental sciences, epidemiology, data sciences, one health, and related disciplines to advance the state of ecological forecasting. The conference will explore key research themes such as mathematical and statistical techniques for quantifying and partitioning uncertainty, forecasting across spatio-temporal scales, designing forecasts that inform real-world decisions, and effective teaching for ecological forecasting.
See details and a Handbook with additional travel suggestions on the new Conference webpage at: https://bit.ly/efi2026
We are in the fifth round of the Statistical Methods Webinar series co-hosted by EFI and the ESA Statistical Ecology Section!
On April 13, 2026, Abby Keller (University of California, Berkeley) presented “The {eDNAjoint} R package to analyze environmental DNA data.” The recording of the seminar will be available by April 20.
On Monday, May 11, 2026 at noon ET, Terri Donovan, Larry Clarfeld, Kate Huber, and Kayley Dillon will present on the {AMMonitor} R package. Register to join the call at: https://bit.ly/4ekk9gU
Find details about this seminar and recordings from all the webinars on the Statistical Methods Seminar webpage.
Email info@ecoforecast.org if you have suggestions for R or Python packages you would be interested in learning more about or have suggestions for speakers.
The EFI Virtual Community Call to share updates about community happenings was held on March 19.
A recording of the call is available at: https://youtu.be/TnBhApSh_Lg
The EFI 2025 Annual Report is now out! You can find a copy of the report HERE or at the top of the Reports webpage.
See a review of 2025 and the efforts EFI made to advance the science and community of ecological forecasting to work towards our mission to build a community of practice around ecological forecasting so as to “understand, manage, and conserve ecosystems”.
The EFI Steering Committee is pleased to announce that after much exploration, EFI is now fiscally sponsored by Ecologistics, Inc!
A huge thanks goes to the four EFI Steering Committee cohorts and the External Advisory Committee, who have worked on this project since 2022. See this blog post for more details about the process to set up fiscal sponsorship and to appreciate all the individuals who have helped get EFI to this point.
The EFI Steering Committee has created new guidelines for collaborating with EFI on grants.
The guidelines provide information on:
- Ways to collaborate with EFI on grants
- Definition of an “EFI Activity”
- Minimum Requirements for Co-Writing a Grant with EFI
- Current and Past Funding for EFI Activities
Find details at: https://ecoforecast.org/guide-for-collaborating-with-efi-on-grants/
Engaged Science Tutorials. The EFI Translation & Actionable Science working group is rolling out short YouTube tutorials on the why, what, who, when, how, and barriers to engaging with interested parties, rightsholders, and end users of forecasts. Each tutorial also provides snippets from interviews with EFI community members and teams that exemplify a range of ways such collaborations have taken place.
You can find more details at: https://ecoforecast.org/engaged-research-tutorials/ Recordings will continue to be made public over the summer.
European EFI Chapter (EEFI) Webinar Series. EEFI is hosting monthly calls on the second Wednesday of the month at 1pm CET.
Alessio Bulckaen (Basque Centre for Climate Changes – ARIES) presented on “Beyond generative AI: integrating expert knowledge in ARIES for ecological forecasting and sustainability assessments” for the April webinar. The recording is now available on the EEFI seminar webpage and at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFGliPK5jpQ.
Find details about upcoming calls and recordings from previous seminars at: https://euro-ecoforecast.wordpress.com/seminar-series/
The Asian EFI Chapter launched in January 2026 to support the ecological forecasting work being done in Asia by focusing on the topics, data streams, and policies that are important in this region, and to provide opportunities for the Asian community to participate in calls that are conducive to the region’s time zones.
Fill out this brief survey to share your interest in participating in, contributing to, or collaborating with the initiative and find all the latest updates at the chapter’s website https://projects.ecoforecast.org/asian-efi/.
Register to join the Kick-off Call on Monday, May 18, at 6pm IST, 3:30pm GMT+3. Register to join the call at: https://bit.ly/4dzJcMP
The recording from the October 2025 Oceania EFI Chapter (OEFI) virtual seminar by Dr. Mark Doubell from the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) on ‘Harmful Algal Bloom in Southern Australia Oceans: Impact and Response’ is now available at: https://youtu.be/PCFhivMC3go
Get details of upcoming OEFI events and sign up for the OEFI list serv at: https://ecoforecast.org/oceania-ecological-forecasting-initiative/
The African EFI Chapter (AEFI) hosted a short course in Cape Town 21-25th July.
Find course content and details at: https://ecoforecast.africa/events/past/course_2025/
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-collection-ecological-forecasting-in-the-earth-system/
See this Eos article for helpful information if you are considering submitting to the special issue.
Submission deadline: October 31, 2026
There are now three Forecasting Challenges available for anyone to participate and submit forecasts to.
1) EFI NEON Ecological Forecast Challenge.
2) EFI-USGS River Chlorophyll Forecasting Challenge.
3) Virginia Ecoforecast Reservoir Analysis (VERA) Forecasting Challenge.
Forecast Challenges can be used for classroom instruction. The cyberinfrastructure is now also 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.
Find a pre-print of a manuscript describing the cyberinfrastructure behind the Forecast Challenges at http://doi.org/10.22541/essoar.175917344.44115142/v1