Theory & Synthesis

Announcement! The Theory Working Group paper, “The Power of Forecasts to Advance Ecological Theory” came out Methods in Ecology and Evolution in August 2022.

Is nature predictable? Looking broadly across ecological subdisciplines, are there common patterns to what limits the predictability of different types of problems? Answering many of the deep, overarching questions in ecology requires us to develop new theory about predictability itself. It also requires synthesis across a small but rapidly growing catalog of ecological forecasts. Finally, forecasting itself is inherently synthetic, as making specific, quantitative predictions requires the fusion of our prior data and our current theories (as embedded in the models we use).  Prediction provides a means of unification by assessing our ability to extrapolate not just within individual problems but across them; it implies we understand something general about how ecological systems work. These are the big-picture problems the  EFI Theory & Synthesis working group aims to tackle.

Theory Resources

Amanda Gallinat’s overview of the Theory Group’s activities for the EFI 2022 Conference held May 23-25, 2022.

Theory Working Group Schedule of Calls:
The Theory Group will meet on January 23, February 27, March 20, April 17, and May 15 at 4pm US Eastern. A new schedule of calls will be developed for June to August 2023. We are always open to people joining the calls, contact us at eco4cast.initiative@gmail.com

Notes from Working Group Calls
Co-chairs: Abby Lewis (Virginia Tech), Shubhi Sharma (Yale University)
Former co-chairs: Amanda Gallinat (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Peter Adler (Utah State University)

  1. February 27, 2023
  2. January 23, 2023
  3. December 7, 2022
  4. November 2, 2022
  5. October 5, 2022
  6. September 14, 2022
  7. August 9, 2022
  8. July 12, 2022
  9. June 7, 2022
  10. May 3, 2022
  11. April 5, 2022
  12. March 8, 2022
  13. February 8, 2022
  14. January 11, 2022
  15. December 14, 2021
  16. November 16, 2021
  17. October 19, 2021
  18. September 28, 2021
  19. August 16, 2021
  20. July 19, 2021
  21. June 21, 2021
  22. May 24, 2021
  23. April 26, 2021
  24. March 22, 2021
  25. February 22, 2021
  26. January 25, 2021
  27. December 16, 2020
  28. November 18, 2020
  29. October 14, 2020
  30. September 16, 2020
  31. August 18, 2020
  32. July 21, 2020
  33. June 23, 2020
  34. May 26, 2020
  35. April 28, 2020
  36. April 2, 2020
  37. March 10, 2020
  38. February 20, 2020
  39. December 3, 2019
  40. November 12, 2019
  41. October 29, 2019
  42. October 1, 2019
  43. August 20, 2019
  44. July 14, 2019