Dawson, M.N., Algar, A.C., Antonelli, A., Dávalos, L.M., Davis, E., Early, R., Guisan, A., Jansson, R., Lessard. J-P., Marske, K.A., McGuire, J., Stigall, A.L., Swenson, N.G., Niklaus E., N.E. and Gavin, D.G

The opportunity to reflect broadly on the accomplishments, prospects, and reach of a field may present itself relatively infrequently. Each biennial meeting of the International Biogeography Society showcases ideas solicited and developed largely during the preceding year, by individuals or teams from across the breadth of the discipline. Here, we highlight challenges, developments, and opportuni ties in biogeography from that biennial synthesis. We note the realized and potential impact of rapid data accumulation in several fields, a renaissance for interdisciplinary research, the importance of recognizing the evolution–ecologycontinuum across spatial and temporal scales and at different taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional levels, and reexploration of classical assumptions and hypotheses using new tools. However, advances are taxonomically and geographically biased, and key theoretical frameworks await tools to handle, or strategies tosimplify, thebiological complexity seen in empirical systems. Current threats to biodiversity require unprecedented integration of knowledge and development of predictive capacity that may enable biogeography to unite its descriptive and hypothetico ‐deductive branches and establish a greater role within and outside academia.