Jason Knouft, from Saint Louis University, Missouri, talks to Elizabeth Horne about his recently published paper, "Using fine-scale GIS data to assess the relationship between intra-annual environmental niche variability and population density in a local stream fish assemblage". Jason establishes the need for broad-scale geographic considerations of ecological issues, and explains how the application of these methods on a finer scale can yield new and valuable insights into the exploitation of ecological niches by local populations, and such populations’ likely reactions to new seasonal and environmental stresses. Read the article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2010.00076.x/full