Stochastic Modeling for the Resilience of Healthy Ecosystems (26w5531)

The Banff International Research Station will host the "Stochastic Modeling for the Resilience of Healthy Ecosystems" workshop in Banff from September 20 to September 25, 2026.

Understanding the resilience of ecosystems will be critical for our future considering the multiple crises that we face. Current understanding of resilience relies largely on examining the consequences of disturbances in a deterministic framework. However, disturbances will be arguably stochastic in nature. Disturbances will be multifaceted, often repeated, and probably highly variable over time. Furthermore there is uncertainty and randomness in the processes that respond to the disturbances. Consequently, resilience is most naturally explored in the context of stochasticity: randomness in disturbances must be expected and prepared for.

In this workshop, we aim to bring together stochastic and deterministic researchers studying the resilience of ecosystems and the resilience of human economic-ecosystem interactions. Through this workshop, we hope to begin to answer our question of how can a stochastic viewpoint extend the applicability of dynamical systems research into resilience. We will explore specific questions of new stochastic measures of resilience, how types and forms of stochastic noise impact resilience, and how noise can illuminate resilient structures in our ecosystems. Critical to this workshop will be interdisciplinary collaboration and also a mentoring of the next generation of resilience researchers (graduate students and early career researchers). Overall, through the insights gained in this workshop, we hope to further our knowledge of resilience producing structures that can be applied to improve our collective resilience in the face of current and future crises.

The Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery (BIRS) is a collaborative Canada-US-Mexico venture that provides an environment for creative interaction as well as the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and methods within the Mathematical Sciences, with related disciplines and with industry. The research station is located at The Banff Centre in Alberta and is supported by Canada's Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and Alberta's Technology and Innovation.