Connect with the CASCs at the 2026 Ecological Society of America Meeting
Explore CASC representation at the 2026 Ecological Society of America Meeting (July 26 - 31, 2026).
Connect with scientists from across the CASC network at the 2026 Ecological Society of America (ESA) meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, from July 26 - 31, 2026. The theme of this year's meeting is "Ecology in an Era of Uncertainty".
Organized Oral Sessions
Session: Advances in Climate-Resilient Agroecosystems in the Anthropocene
- Contributor: Laura Thompson (National CASC)
- Talk Title: Assessing the climate resilience of carbon credit projects: overlap of offset sites with drought, flood, and fire risks
- When: Tuesday, July 28 | 10:00 - 11:00 AM
Session: Climate Adaptation at ESA: Moving from Theory to Practice to Change (with) the World
- Contributors: John Bradford (Northwest CASC), Sarah Love (Northeast CASC), Toni Lyn Morelli (Northeast CASC), Laura Thompson (National CASC)
- Talk Titles:
When: Wednesday, July 29 | 1:30 – 3:00 PM
Contributed Oral Sessions
Session: Ecosystem Management
Contributor: Sarah Love (Northeast CASC)
Talk Title: Navigating Ecological Change by Embracing Complex Decision Making
When: Thursday, July 30 | 3:30 – 5:00 PM
Session: Climate Change: Plants 4
- Contributor: Sierra Perez (Southeast CASC)
- Talk Title: Interacting precipitation and temperature anomalies alter percent cover in a subset of plant species across the Southeastern U.S.
- When: Thursday, July 30 | 1:30 – 3:00 PM
Symposia
Uncharted: Disease Ecology Amidst Uncertainty
Contributor: Toni Lyn Morelli (Northeast CASC)
Talk Title: At the intersection of biological invasions and climate change, Translational Ecology can help
When: Wednesday, July 29 | 10:00 – 11:30 AM
Inspire Sessions
Science in Service: Co-Producing Actionable Science for Climate Resilience
Contributor: Toni Lyn Morelli (Northeast CASC)
Talk Title: Translational Ecology for a Better World
When: Wednesday, July 29 | 3:30 – 5:00 PM
Posters
Evaluating ecological efficacy of climate adaptation actions can improve natural resource management
- Contributors: Meagan Oldfather (North Central CASC), Sarah Weiskopf (National CASC)
- Additional details pending
Workshops
This workshop introduces the Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD) framework—an adaptive management approach that helps practitioners evaluate whether to resist ecological transformation, accept transformation, or direct ecosystems toward new, desirable trajectories. Participants will gain grounding in RAD concepts, learn how the framework is being implemented by practitioners, and explore the types of ecological data, analyses, and evidence needed to strengthen RAD decisions. By the end, participants will understand where the research community can contribute to more robust, decision-ready RAD applications in a rapidly changing world and identify opportunities for new research that directly advances climate adaptation practice.
Contributors: Sarah Love (Northeast CASC), Laura Thompson (National CASC), Sarah Weiskopf (National CASC)
When: Wednesday, July 29 | 11:45 - 1:15 PM
In this workshop we will create a map of plant functional composition across a site in the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON, https://data.neonscience.org). We will classify PFTs from NEON’s airborne lidar and hyperspectral data and train the model on ground-based inventories. In this hands-on code-along, we will follow a publicly available tutorial and discuss ways that researchers can modify the presented example for their own needs (e.g., selection of a different site or PFT subset). This data science workshop will be of interest to land surface modelers and other ESA attendees who want to characterize the functional makeup of their study systems at a fine spatial scale. Basic familiarity with coding is required for participation in this workshop. The workflow uses both R and python.
Contributors: Anna Spiers (Alaska CASC)
When: Tuesday, July 28 | 1:30 – 3:00 PM
Social Events
This event is designed as a social gathering to foster connections among ecologists interested in climate adaptation. It provides an informal space for attendees to meet, share experiences, and build new professional relationships within the field. The session will be accessible to all ecologists attending the meeting, regardless of their specific background or expertise.
Contributors: Toni Lyn Morelli (Northeast CASC), Laura Thompson (National CASC)
When: Tuesday, July 28 | 6:30-8:00 PM
This is a casual time for networking, socializing, sharing news and events, and planning for the chapter's future. Feel free to bring folks who are not chapter members.
Contributor: Sarah Love (Northeast CASC)
When: Tuesday, July 28 | 12:00 - 1:00 PM