INS 5: EFI/NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge

Session Organizer(s)

• Michael Dietze

  Boston University
  Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Moderator(s)

• Michael Dietze

  Boston University
  Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Volunteer(s)

• Shih-Huai Cheng

  Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

This session focuses on the design and initial results from the Ecological Forecasting Initiative’s NEON forecasting challenge. The forecasting challenge is an open competition launched in 2020 that asks participants to make predictions for ecological data being collected by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). It is similar to a data science challenge or model-intercomparison project except that it is a true forecast -- the validation data haven’t been collected yet at the time predictions are made. The Challenge revolves around five theme areas (Aquatic Ecosystems, Tick Populations, Ground Beetle Diversity, Vegetation Phenology, Terrestrial Ecosystem Fluxes) and the session will include talks describing the data, protocols, and initial results for each theme. We will also describe how individuals, teams, and classes can participate in the challenge, including the standards and cyberinfrastructure used. Across these forecast areas the primary scientific goals are to improve our predictive capacity in these five areas, to learn more about the patterns of predictability across different ecological processes, and determine what modeling frameworks, mechanistic processes, and statistical approaches best capture community, population, and ecosystem dynamics. Another major goal of the challenge is to create a community of practice that builds capacity for ecological forecasting by leveraging NEON data products. As such the session will also touch on outcomes of EFI’s recent forecast education and diversity workshops and the EFI Student Association’s “10 simple rules” for training yourself in an emerging field.

Presentations:

• ON DEMAND

  10 simple rules for training yourself in an emerging field
  

  Presenting Author: Whitney M. Woelmer – Virginia Tech
• ON DEMAND

  Aquatic ecosystem challenge
  

  Presenting Author: Ryan McClure – Virginia Tech
• ON DEMAND

  Forecasting the responses of beetle community metrics
  

  Presenting Author: Anna I. Spiers – University of Colorado
• ON DEMAND

  Forecasting the responses of land-atmosphere carbon and water fluxes to spatial and temporal variability in soil moisture stress
  

  Presenting Author: Alexander R. Young – Forest and Natural Resources Management, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
• ON DEMAND

  Galvanizing the field of ecological forecasting using the NEON Ecological Forecasting Challenge
  

  Presenting Author: R. Quinn Thomas – Virginia Tech
• ON DEMAND

  How to participate in the EFI/NEON Challenge: Cyberinfrastructure and standards
  

  Presenting Author: Carl Boettiger – University of California Berkeley
• ON DEMAND

  Open community forecasts of deciduous forest phenology
  

  Presenting Author: Kathryn I. Wheeler – Boston University
• ON DEMAND

  Paving the way for a more diverse next generation of ecological forecasters
  

  Presenting Author: Alyssa Willson – University of Notre Dame
• ON DEMAND

  Tick population challenge
  

  Presenting Author: John R. Foster – Boston University