Ecological forecasting

This meeting critically examines whether ecological forecasting can become accurate enough for conservation and biodiversity management. Demographic and ecosystem models, observations, statistical inference and machine learning address interacting species under climate and other pressures. Terrestrial, marine and polar examples explore predictability limits, uncertainty, model benchmarking and research-informed decisions. Programme participants include Emily G Simmonds (University of Edinburgh, UK); Benjamin Planque (Institute of Marine Research, Norway); Michael Dietze (Boston University, US

Sanne Evers introduces the first forecasting challenge organized by the European Ecological Forecasting Initiative. The challenge uses long-running observations from Doñana National Park in southern Spain to support short-term predictions of vegetation indices and the abundance of multiple shrub species. Forecasting these changes can inform habitat management, productivity assessments and conservation decisions under climatic and hydrological pressures. The seminar explains why Doñana’s range of habitats and monitoring infrastructure offer a useful setting for comparing predictions before new