This volume is derived from the Annual Symposium of the British Ecological Society on ‘Speciation and Ecology’ which was held at the University of Sheffield, 28–30 March 2007. The idea for this Symposium arose during a previous meeting in the series, the 2002 ‘Macroecology: Concepts and Consequences’ meeting organized by Tim Blackburn and Kevin Gaston. The 2002 meeting concentrated on large-scale diversity patterns. Many speakers acknowledged the role of speciation in generating diversity and influencing patterns of diversity. Although there was some discussion of the factors that determine rates of speciation, it was striking how little contact there seemed to be between the discipline of macroecology and the large and active field of research into mechanisms of adaptive divergence and speciation. ‘Ecological speciation’ has been an area of research growth in recent years, asking how ecological drivers influence the speciation process. However, the opposite direction of effect, how speciation processes impact on ecological patterns, has been studied less. Therefore, we proposed a meeting whose central objective was to foster dialogue between these two fields.

The meeting had an unusual mix of participants but we hope that they managed to communicate effectively with one another! The chapters in this book reflect the range of topics discussed and we hope that they will help to continue the conversations that were started in Sheffield.