Methods & Tools

The integration of data and models is at the core of ecological forecasting. There is much that can be learned about forecasting methods from other disciplines, from weather forecasters through to economic forecasters. But ecologists also face challenges that outside the mainstream of either of these extremes, such as a high degree of process heterogeneity across many scales and an abundance of semi-mechanistic models, where physical and chemical constraints play an important role but many functional relationships are empirically derived. This working group will advance the statistical methods and tools for forecasting and data assimilation by advancing statistical approaches and best practices for data assimilation, translating these into software tools usable by ecologists, and develop uncertainty estimates on common data.

Methods Working Group Schedule of Calls:
The Methods & Cyberinfrastructure Group will reduce its meeting frequency to quarterly, or until a lead is identified for a shared project of interest to the group. The group is planning to meet in late October or early November 2026 to discuss a potential project. A poll will be sent to the working group email list and posted in Slack to identify a meeting date. We are always open to people joining the calls. Contact us at eco4cast.initiative@gmail.com

Methods Blog Posts and Resources

  • Introducing EFI Task Views!
  • Wildfire recovery forecast using MODIS leaf area index (LAI):
    The Cyberinfrastructure and Statistical Methods working group developed this spatial forecast challenge and rolled it out at the EFI2025 Conference. You can find more information about the project here: https://github.com/eco4cast/modis-lai-forecast/tree/main. 
    A tutorial for the spatial challenge is available at: https://github.com/eco4cast/modis-lai-forecast/tree/main/tutorials. 
    And the rendered html is available here.
  • R Shiny Seminar Series – recordings and resources from 4 seminars that demonstrated a variety of technical aspects for R Shiny web app development and provided example R code for a Shiny app that incorporates the features shared during the seminars. The topics in this series include:
    • A Primer to Creating Interactive Maps with Leaflet in Shiny
    • Improving Speed of Shiny Apps by Pre-Computing Models
    • Creative Visualization of Model Results and Uncertainty in Shiny
    • Visualization of Data in Space and Time: An Interactive Framework
  • Statistical Methods Webinar Series – recordings and resources from webinars on a range of statistical tools and R packages that can be used for each of the tools. The topics include:
    • wsyn Wavelet approaches to studies of synchrony in ecology
    • SpaDES for developing and running Spatial Discrete Event Simulation models
    • Spatiotemporal modeling
    • Applications of the `aniMotum` R package for quality control, behavioural estimation and simulation of animal movement data
    • HMSC, Hierarchical Modelling of Species Communities
    • Ecological Forecasting with Dynamic Generalized Additive Models
    • Integrated Species Distribution Models
    • Bayesian Stable Isotope Mixing Models and the MixSIAR R package
    • State-space Models and the Template Model Builder (TMB) R package
    • Spatial Modeling in Ecology
    • Zero Inflated GLM and GLMM
    • Structural Equation Models and the piecewiseSEM R package 
    • Analysis of Bioacoustic Data 
    • Spatial Occupancy Models and the spOccupancy R package
    • Hidden Markov Models,
    • NIMBLE,
    • Multi-species Occupancy Modeling,
    • Integrated Step-Selection Analysis,
    • Movement Ecology,
    • Generalized Joint Attribute Modeling (GJAM),
    • Generalized Additive Models (GAMs),
    • Species Archetype Models and Regions of Common Profile Models,
    • Mixed Models
Matt Brousil provides an overview of the Cyberinfrastructure and Methods Working Groups’ progress on the Task Views for the EFI 2022 Conference held May 23-25, 2021.

Notes from Working Group Calls
Chair: Jacob Zwart (USGS)

  1. August 25, 2026 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  2. June 23, 2026 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  3. May 26, 2026 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  4. April 28, 2026 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  5. March 17, 2026 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  6. February 17, 2026 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  7. January 27, 2026 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  8. December 8, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  9. November 17, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  10. October 20, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  11. September 15, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  12. August 18, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  13. June 30, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  14. May 14, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  15. April 15, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  16. March 19, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  17. February 19, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  18. January 22, 2025 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  19. December 19, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  20. November 21, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  21. October 17, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  22. September 19, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  23. August 19, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  24. July 22, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  25. June 24, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  26. May 17, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  27. April 26, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  28. March 15, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  29. February 23, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  30. January 19, 2024 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  31. December 8, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  32. November 17, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  33. October 27, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  34. September 29, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  35. August 22, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  36. June 14, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  37. May 10, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  38. April 12, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  39. March 15, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  40. February 15, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  41. January 18, 2023 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  42. December 9, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  43. November 11, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  44. October 14, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  45. September 16, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  46. August 11, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  47. July 21, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  48. June 9, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  49. May 12, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  50. April 14, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  51. March 10, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  52. February 10, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  53. January 13, 2022 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  54. December 7, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  55. November 9, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  56. October 12, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  57. September 21, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  58. August 20, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  59. July 16, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  60. June 25, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  61. May 24, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  62. April 26, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  63. March 29, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  64. March 1, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  65. February 1, 2021 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  66. December 15, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  67. November 17, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  68. October 20, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  69. September 22, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  70. August 24, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  71. July 27, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  72. June 29, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  73. June 1, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  74. May 8, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  75. April 17, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  76. March 27, 2020 – joint Methods and CI Working Groups call
  77. February 21, 2020
  78. November 14, 2019
  79. September 26, 2019
  80. August 21, 2019
  81. July 10, 2019