NEON RCN: The Ecological Forecasting Initiative RCN: Using NEON-enabled near-term forecasting to synthesize our understanding of predictability across ecological systems and scales

21世纪的特点是重大的环境变化，这些变化改变了社会赖以提供清洁水、储存碳和支持动植物的生态系统。预测和预测这些系统的未来可以帮助资源管理人员预测和响应这些变化。生态预测还通过开发和测试模型以及测试关于生态系统如何运作的其他观点，促进科学理解。为了利用预测的力量，需要一个实践团体。这个社区将建立开发和交流预测的标准。它将分享对已知不确定性进行预测的最佳实践。该组织将创建工具和教育材料，使生态学家能够开始预测。生态预测倡议研究协调网络奖将围绕大陆规模的国家生态观测站网络（NEON）的预测数据建立这个实践社区。通过关注NEON的数据，社区将面临挑战，为美国各地存在的各种环境开发和评估预测。该奖项将在生态预测方面培养数百名早期职业研究人员和研究生。生态预测倡议研究协调网络将利用一系列网络研讨会、会议和协作软件开发活动来实现以下目标：(1)开发存档和共享基于neon的生态预测的最佳实践；(2)增加基于neon的预测的数量、多样性和质量；(3)通过开发关于生态预测方法的开放式教程，培训生态社区生成基于neon的预测；(4)促进和支持致力于预测生态学家之间知识转移的协作互动；(5)建立学术生态预测社区与使用预测指导决策的任务驱动机构之间的联系；(6)综合现有预测和新的neon预测，以评估跨生态系统和尺度的可预测性极限。总的来说，这些目标都集中在解决理解自然可预测性的重大挑战上。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The 21st century is characterized by major environmental changes that alter the ecosystems society depends on for supplying clean water, storing carbon, and supporting plants and animals. Predicting and forecasting the future of these systems can help resource managers anticipate and respond to these changes. Ecological forecasts also advance scientific understanding by developing and testing models and testing alternative views of how ecological systems operate. To harness the power of forecasting, a community of practice is needed. This community will establish standards for developing and communicating forecasts. It will share best practices for generating forecasts with known uncertainties. The group will create tools and educational materials to enable ecologists to begin forecasting. The Ecological Forecasting Initiative Research Coordination Network award will build this community of practice around forecasting data from the continental-scale National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). By focusing on data from NEON, the community will be challenged to develop and evaluate forecasts for a diversity of environments that exist across the United States. The award will train hundreds of early career researchers and graduate students in ecological forecasting.The Ecological Forecasting Initiative Research Coordination Network will use a set of network workshops, conferences, and collaborative software development events to address the following objectives: (1) develop best practices for archiving and sharing NEON-enabled ecological forecasts, (2) increase the number, diversity, and quality of NEON-enabled forecasts, (3) train the ecological community to produce NEON-enabled forecasts by developing open tutorials in ecological forecasting methods, (4) facilitate and support collaborative interactions dedicated to forecasting knowledge transfer among ecologists, (5) cultivate connections between the academic ecological forecasting community and mission-driven agencies that use forecasts to guide decision-making, and (6) synthesize existing forecasts and new NEON-enabled forecasts to evaluate limits to forecastability across ecological systems and scales. Overall, these objectives are focused on solving the grand challenge of understanding the predictability of nature.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.