May 29, 2026: Early bird registration deadline
June 1, 2026: Full registration deadline
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
Based on suggestions from the Canadian EFI Chapter and EFI2026 Conference organizers, the joint EFI Education/DEI working group is hosting the 2026 book club in June to read and discuss Elbows Up!, edited by Elamin Abdelmahmoud, in preparation for the Conference.
Elbows Up! is a collection of essays by over 30 Canadian writers, artists, and cultural figures reflecting on Canadian identity, Canada’s relationship with the U.S., national unity, and the country’s future, featuring diverse voices from Indigenous, immigrant, and Québécois perspectives.
The group will meet twice in June. Email info@ecoforecast.org by June 1 if you would like to receive the poll to schedule the calls.
The fifth round of the Statistical Methods Webinar series co-hosted by EFI and the ESA Statistical Ecology Section wrapped up in May 2026!
The recording and resources from the May seminar by Terri Donovan, Kayley Dillon, Larry Clarfeld, and Kate Huber (University of Vermont) on “The {AMMonitor} R package: Remote wildlife monitoring” are now available, as are all the previous seminars, 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 for future rounds of the series.
European EFI Chapter (EEFI) Webinar Series. EEFI is hosting monthly calls typically on the second Wednesday of the month at 1pm CET.
On 10th June, Kate Layton-Matthews (NorwegianNorwegian Institute for Nature Research) will present on “Modelling seabird population dynamics in rapidly changing marine ecosystems”
Kate will discuss how integrating population, tracking data, and environmental data through analytical approaches can improve ecological forecasting for seabirds.
The recording for Mikolaj Czerkawski (Asterisk Labs), 20th May seminar on “Earth Observation for Global Semantic Understanding of the Environment“ is available at: https://youtu.be/4Cjh9y32xO8
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.
During the May Kick-Off call, the Asian Chapter co-chairs shared the chapter’s vision and presented ideas for activities to jump-start the group. A recording of the presentation portion of the call is available at https://youtu.be/m_JMyKc6nOw.
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/.
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.
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
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 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 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/
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
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.