The heterogeneous distribution of life on Earth is a ubiquitous pattern, but knowledge about causal factors remains elusive. Questions regarding this pattern have been traditionally addressed with different approaches, namely historic (biogeographical) vs. contemporary (ecological). Often, these perspectives were considered sepa‐ rate since each recognized different processes responsible for biological diversity, geography and history on one side and ecological interactions and climate on the other. This created a chasm be‐ tween ecology and biogeography that remained from the maturation of ecology during the 1960’s and until recent years (Wiens & Donoghue 2004). Recognition of scale as an object of study instead of a nuisance in ecological studies (Wiens 1989) and the broadening perspective of ecological sys‐ tems being influenced by both biogeographical and ecological contexts (Ricklefs and Schluter 1993) paved the way to acknowledge the interac‐ tion of regional effects on local patterns and vice versa. Consequently, the development of new concepts and disciplines (e.g. neutral theory, mac‐ roecology), along with analytical techniques and data availability (e.g. phylogenetic reconstruc‐ tion), have helped bridge the gap towards a com‐ prehensive understanding of biodiversity patterns. As an example of such bridging, Dave Jenkins and Bob Ricklefs convened a symposium during the 5 th IBS meeting, in Crete, Greece, that showed pro‐ gress in this direction. Here, we give a brief over‐ view of this symposium through the lenses of two biogeographers in‐training. A major constraint to the evaluation of the effect of biogeographic factors in local communi‐ ties is the lack of manipulative ways to address their influence. Null modelling approaches have provided a framework to distinguish potential processes involved in community assembly when experiments are not possible. Jon Chase pre‐ sented an example of combining these ap‐ proaches with actual experiments. He showed that integration of null models and controlled ex‐ periments under a regional perspective aids in disentangling the relative effects of niche and sto‐ chastic processes in biogeography. His results of experiments in freshwater ponds reveal the effect of niche‐based processes in lower productivity systems and stochastic processes (i.e. drift) at higher productivities. In the same vein, Evan Wei‐ her presented results of a unique large‐scale ex‐ periment evaluating the relative influence of dif‐ References Cavender‐Bares, J., Kozak, K., Fine, P. & Kembel, S. (2009) The merging of community ecology and phyloge‐ netic biology. Ecology Letters, 12, 693‐715. Emerson, B.C. & Gillespie, R.G. (2008) Phylogenetic analysis of community assembly and structure over space and time. Trends in Ecology and Evo‐ lution, 23, 619‐630. Hanski, I.A. & Gaggiotti, O.E., eds (2004) Ecology, ge‐ netics and evolution of metapopulations. El‐ sevier Academic Press, Burlington, MA. Holyoak, M., Leibold, M.A. & Holt, R.D., eds (2005) Metacommunities: spatial dynamics and eco‐ logical communities. University Of Chicago Press, Chicago. Ricklefs, R.E. & Schluter, D., eds (1993) Species diversity in ecological communities. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Ricklefs, R.E. (2007) History and diversity: Explorations at the intersection of ecology and evolution. American Naturalist, 170, S56‐S70. Ricklefs, R.E. (2008) Disintegration of the ecological community. American Naturalist, 172, 741–750. David G. Jenkins 1 & Robert E. Ricklefs 2 1.Department of Biology, University of Central Florida, USA. e‐mail: David.Jenkins@ucf.edu http://biology.ucf.edu/~djenkins 2.Department of Biology, University of Missouri‐ St. Louis, USA. E‐mail: ricklefs@umsl.edu http://www.umsl.edu/~ricklefsr Edited by Michael N Dawson ISSN 1948‐6596 news and update Symposium summary — a perspective from two delegates Biogeography and ecology: two lenses in one telescope A symposium at 5th International Biogeography Society Conference – Heraklion, Greece, 7–11 January 2011 1 4 © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society — frontiers of biogeography 3.1, 2011 2