Harnessing the power of ecological forecasting

Rapidly changing climates and landscape modification are impacting global ecosystems at all micro- and macroecological levels, incurring significant economic and environmental costs. Human encroachment into bushland and habitat alterations are magnifying risks of zoonotic diseases and shifting key conservation targets. Changing temperatures are altering food distributions and influencing reproductive cycles for important fishery species, introducing major uncertainties for vulnerable economies. There is broad consensus among scientists, parliamentarians and decision-makers that anticipating probable future states is vital to mitigate these impacts of environmental change. [Ecological forecasting](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691160573/ecological-forecasting?srsltid=AfmBOoqTehNcuCJePZZYTs4e_gwnKGP6UC9Z1nB3r2Kislgik4lIRV_Y) is a fundamental representation of hypothesis-driven science that aims to address this gap by (1) using theory-driven models and observational data to make near-term forecasts (2) falsifying these forecasts against future data to identify critical data / model limitations (3) refining hypotheses and model structures and (4) repeating. This iterative cycle can accelerate learning, drive model improvement and emphasize outputs that are immediately useful for effective planning and resource management. It is no surprise then that ecological forecasting is becoming a key focus in diverse fields including evolutionary biology, ecosystem services and epidemiology. In this talk, I introduce [the near-term forecasting cycle](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1710231115) and motivate its importance to ecology by providing a set of simple but thought-provoking questions we can ask ourselves whenever we seek to build biologically relevant models and deliver predictions that are more useful to relevant end-users.

December 10, 2024

5:25 PM – 5:30 PM

Melbourne, Australia