The American Meteorological Society (AMS) Committee on Ecological Forecasting was chartered in 2014 to recognize the urgent need to accelerate connections between weather, water, ocean, coastal, and terrestrial forecasting and the emerging modeling and forecasting capabilities in the ecological and environmental communities. In January 2024 the AMS adopted a Statement on The Future of Ecological Forecasting to generate broader awareness of this need within the AMS. In March 2026 members of the AMS Committee published a paper entitled "Ecological Forecasting for Readiness, Resilience, and Response" in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) to call attention to and elaborate on the Statement by providing additional background, motivation, and examples to support the Statement. This talk at EFI 2026 will give an overview of the BAMS paper with a focus on the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration across the weather, water, and climate forecasting community and the ecological forecasting community. We will address the intersection of weather and climate with ecosystem impacts; our common interest in providing actionable information to support decision-making to mitigate and respond to impacts across diverse domains including agriculture, fisheries and related of food and medicine supply chains, power grid stability, infrastructure damage, human health, and many more; areas for joint interdisciplinary research and development that benefit both of our communities; and, the role of professional societies in coordinating transdisciplinary efforts. We will also present an overview of the activities of the AMS Committee on Ecological Forecasting.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary collaboration societies