Date: July 25, 2023

EFI is excited about the opportunity to connect with the broader community through a number of events at ESA in Long Beach, California this year! Below are details about the EFI Social, a workshop about the NEON Forecasting Challenge, multiple sessions organized by EFI and others about forecasting EFI-organized and other forecasting, and a Career Central panel. If you are presenting an ecological forecasting-related talk or poster that you don’t see on the list, reach out so we can get it added to this list!

We will again have EFI badges to add to your name tags!
We will continue to make updates to this page prior to ESA. All times listed below are in US Pacific Time.

EFI Badges

We will have EFI badges that can be attached to the ESA name tags available for individuals who are part of the Ecological Forecasting Initiative community. Find Mike Dietze throughout the week or at the EFI Social on Wednesday to get a badge and look for others with the green badge!

EFI Social
Wednesday, August 7 at 6:30-8:30 PM

Connect and network with others in the EFI community over food, including vegan and vegetarian options at The Auld Dubliner. The Auld Dubliner is just 400 feet from the Convention Center.

Workshop:  An Introduction to the NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge: A Hands-On Example Using Ground Beetle Abundance and Richness
Thursday, August 8 at 11:45 AM – 1:15 PM; Location: 104B

This workshop will provide an overview of the EFI RCN NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge theme forecasting ground beetle abundance and richness across NEON terrestrial sites. The workshop will include code-along instructions to help participants create and submit a simple forecast to the Forecasting Challenge platform as well as interpret metrics of forecast skill. Participants will gain a foundation that can be built upon to create more sophisticated predictions about ecological communities and use the EFI RCN resources in future forecasting applications.

EFI Organized Oral Session: Ecological Forecasting for Research and Decision Making
Tuesday. August 6 at 8-9:30 AM; Location 104C

• Shuqi Lin (Environment and Climate Change Canada) – An operational forecast system based on process-based and machine learning models to enable predictive simulation of algal bloom in a well-monitored m
• Elliott Hazen (NOAA) – Dynamic ocean ecosystems necessitate dynamic management: ecological nowcasts and seasonal to annual forecasts for improving our response to unexpected
• Millie Chapman (NCEAS) – Forecasting species distributions for strategic conservation decisions: Why the social and political dimensions of underlying biodiversity data matter
• Istem Fer (Finnish Meteorological Institute) – Near-term agricultural forecasts of carbon dynamics to improve carbon sequestration and decision support at Field Observatory Network (FiON) sites
• Kayode Oshinubi (Northern Arizona University) – Predicting geographical variations in West Nile Virus disease dynamics and the impact of climate factors
• Gemma Carroll (Environmental Defense Fund) – Projecting climate change impacts on a tropical reef fishery to strengthen coastal community resilience

Contributed Oral Session: Back and Forecasting in Ecology
Tuesday, August 6 at 10:00-11:30 AM; Location: 102C

• Eric Sokol (NEON) – Forecasting ground beetle abundances across the National Ecological Observatory Network
• Michael Dietze (Boston University) – Multisensor data assimilation to support terrestrial carbon cycle Monitoring, Reporting, Verification, and Forecasting
• Paul Selmants (U.S. Geological Survey) – Initial conditions have a lasting impact on model estimates of forest ecosystem carbon dynamics
• Daniel Katz (Cornell University) – Pollen release models for public health applications: Comparing Juniperus ashei phenology with airborne pollen
• Marcus Lapeyrolerie (University of California, Berkeley) – A Comparison of Neural Network Models for Limnological Time Series Forecasting
• John Zobitz (Augsburg University) – Operationalizing a soil carbon flux forecast across the continental United States

Organized Oral Session: What is Model Complexity? Defining Complexity Across Systems in Ecology
Tuesday, August 6 at 10:00-11:30 AM; Location: 101A

This session, organized by Charlotte Malmborg (Boston University) and R. Alex Thompson (Washington State University), has been in the works since ESA 2023 with conversations about the then-blog post, now-published paper about model complexity (https://doi.org/10.1002/met.2202). There will be an audience discussion following the panelists and it would be great to have fellow forecasters join that discussion.

• Cara Gallagher (University of Potsdam) – From physiology to populations: Modelling the consequences of disturbance on marine mammals
• Kelly Heilman (Oak Ridge Associated Universities/USDA Forest Service) – Incorporating ecological complexity in growth and mortality models through hierarchical data fusion of tree ring and forest inventory data
• Kai Zhu (University of Michigan) – Be intentional with model complexity using hierarchical models
• Drew Peltier (Northern Arizona University) – Still recovering or just remembering? Differentiating autocorrelation, memory, and legacies in dryland forest of the Western US
• Alan Hastings (University of California, Davis) – What do complex dynamics approaches tell us about ecology?
• Charlotte Malmborg (Boston University) – Where, When, and How Bugs Eat Trees: Confronting Complexity in the Pest Outbreak Process

Special Session: Toward Understanding and Anticipating Extreme Weather Effects on Biodiversity, Phenology, and Ecosystems
Monday, August 5 at 10:30-11:30 AM; Location: 104C

Extreme weather events, including heat waves, droughts, flooding, and unusual cold periods, are a major component of global climate change. Despite increases in the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, direct and indirect effects on biodiversity, phenology, and ecosystem services remain poorly understood. Assessing and anticipating impacts of extreme weather presents unique obstacles across systems, geographies, and scales. Key challenges include availability of and accessibility to relevant data resources, development of methods and approaches to characterize extreme weather events, and obstacles to predicting and forecasting. Solutions require multidisciplinary collaborations across the ecological community to develop effective tools and resources to address these challenges. We propose a session to convene a panel of experts spanning multiple career stages in the fields of biodiversity informatics, plant and insect phenology, and vector borne disease systems to discuss key challenges to understanding and anticipating extreme weather effects across organisms, phenology, and ecosystems. Session hosts will provide a talk outlining work within their field of expertise, followed by an interactive panel and audience discussion. The session will culminate in a dedicated 10-minute discussion, facilitated by the organizer, focusing on facilitating cross-disciplinary collaborations to leverage knowledge and approaches applicable to addressing challenges across domains.  

Speakers: Robert Guralnick (University of Florida), Michael Belitz (Michigan State University), Daijiang Li (Louisiana State University), Assaf Anyamba (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Organized Oral Session: Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity Through the Lens of Climate-Explicit Demographic Modeling
Thursday, August 8 at 8:00-9:30 AM; Location: 104A

• Edgar González (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) – Effect of climate change on the population decline of the saguaro cactus throughout its distribution
• Bilgecan Sen (Stony Brook University) – Environmental space-time equivalence of the breeding ecology of emperor penguins
• Jacob Moutouama (Rice University) – Forecasting range shifts of a dioecious plant species under climate change
• John Jackson (Estación Biológica de Doñana) – Life-history traits as a predictive tool for climate change vulnerability in terrestrial vertebrates
• Margaret Evans (University of Arizona) – Spatial networks of tree-ring time series reveal the limits of space-for-time substitution: implications for ecological forecasting
• Jeniffer Williams (University of British Columbia) – Linking climate to demography to predict future climate change impacts on population dynamics and persistence

Organized Oral Session: Collaborative Conservation in the Face of Changing Climate
Thursday, August 8 at 8:00-9:30 AM; Location: 104B

• Todd Schenk (Virginia Tech) – Brokering knowledge: Enhancing the saliency, credibility and legitimacy of data on species migration
• Paul Armsworth (University of Tennessee) – Reconciling spatial biodiversity optimization and institutional dynamics to increase the impact of land protection
• Matthew Williamson (Boise State University) – Jurisdictional fragmentation, implementation resistance, and connectivity conservation for icon American wildlife
• Narayani Barve (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) – Predicting places and species where transboundary collaboration is needed under climate change
• Hailey Shanovich (USFS) – Supporting integration of climate change into State Wildlife Action Plans – being a knowledge broker
• Kailin Kroetz (Arizona State University) – Sustainability implications of land protection by diverse actors

Career Central – The Ecology Entrepreneur: Insights from Industry Leaders
Monday, Aug 5 at noon-1pm, Location: Exhibit Hall Career Central Room 1

Join this insightful session with founders of ecological organizations, consulting services, and innovative initiatives. Panelists are entrepreneurs who have demonstrated initiative, leadership, and innovation in creating and leading their communities of practice. If you identify with these qualities, you too can become an entrepreneur.

Panelists: Tim Nuttle (Oikos Ecology), Michael Dietze (Ecological Forecasting initiative), Shah Selbe (Conservify and FieldKit)