The role space plays in shaping ecological interactions and the diversity of ecological communities is murky. Though spatial variation is often invoked by ecologists as a mechanism for species diversity generation, maintenance, and turnover, space as a resource in its own right is often ignored or conflated with amount and availability of other resources. There are many ways to consider the role of space in ecological systems. First, space is limited and may serve as a resource itself, and the partitioning of space can promote species coexistence. Second, space is linked to the availability of other resources. The link between space and other resources is not always clear, but we generally make the useful substitution that more space allows for more resources and more individuals in a community. Third, space introduces environmental variation at various scales, from local environmental variation (e.g. turnover in soil chemistry across meters), which may influence the nature of species interactions within a community, to regional turnover in climate, which may influence the species pools shaping communities. This organized oral symposium is directed at understanding (1) how space plays a role in ecological interactions, (2) when space is most relevant these interactions, and (3) how variation in space can give rise to or maintain ecological diversity. Our goal is to bring space to the fore so we can begin to properly examine its effect on species diversity maintenance, paying particular attention to plant communities. For example, is there a qualitative difference in the nature of species coexistence in a resource-explicit, spatially-implicit heuristic model of coexistence versus a resource-explicit, spatially-explicit heuristic model of coexistence? How do species traits (e.g. dispersal kernels) interact with spatial variation to influence diversity? And what can spatial sorting at the local, community scale tell us about species sorting at the scale of species’ niches and range limits? With this organized oral symposium, our plan is to encourage holistic consideration of how to approach these questions and more. We will do so by hosting a session focused on empirical and theoretical work leveraging spatial variation across scales to understand species interactions, diversity, and coexistence in plant communities.