Ryan recently visited Imperial College London for the 75th anniversary of their Silwood Park campus, which was established after World War II for field-based research on topics related to ecology. The event included seminars by distinguished alumni of Silwood park about the campus’s history and the future of research there. Several young Silwood researchers also gave engaging presentations about their recent research. The day before the event, Ryan gave a seminar on our lab’s work on transitions between dispersal assembly and niche assembly in ecological communities.