CAP LTER scientist, Paige Warren traveled to Ferrara, Italy in July for the Fifth European Conference on Behavioral Biology. She was invited to serve as the opening speaker in a symposium on "Consequences of an Urbanizing World: from Physiology to Behaviour," organized by Henrik Brumm (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany) and Diego Gil (Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid). 

Warren spoke about the transition in urban community ecology from describing pattern to an emerging understanding of the underlying processes – from extinction-colonization dynamics to the importance of species interactions like competition (an idea highlighted in a recent BioScience paper led by CAP scientist Eyal Shochat). She argued that behavioral biologists have an important role to play in distinguishing among these candidate mechanisms. She also called for greater collaboration with social scientists, recognizing that interdisciplinary approaches will yield greater insights into all these questions than solely disciplinary approaches.