A substantial increase in predictive capacity is needed to anticipate and mitigate the widespread change in ecosystems and their services in the face of climate and biodiversity crises. In this era of accelerating change, we cannot rely on historical patterns or focus primarily on long-term projections that extend decades into the future. In this Perspective, we discuss the potential of near-term (daily to decadal) iterative ecological forecasting to improve decision-making on actionable time frames. We summarize the current status of ecological forecasting and focus on how to scale up, build on lessons from weather forecasting, and take advantage of recent technological advances. We also highlight the need to focus on equity, workforce development, and broad cross-disciplinary and non-academic partnerships.

面对气候和生物多样性危机，需要大幅提高预测能力，以预测和减轻生态系统及其服务的广泛变化。在这个加速变化的时代，我们不能依赖历史模式，也不能主要关注未来几十年的长期预测。在这个视角中，我们讨论了近期（每日到十年）迭代生态预测的潜力，以改善可操作时间框架的决策。我们总结了生态预报的现状，并重点介绍了如何扩大规模，借鉴天气预报的经验教训，并利用最近的技术进步。我们还强调需要关注公平、劳动力发展以及广泛的跨学科和非学术伙伴关系。