Plant functional and taxonomic diversity in European grasslands along climatic gradients

Aim: European grassland communities are highly diverse, but patterns and drivers of their continental-scale diversity remain elusive. This study analyses taxonomic and functional richness in European grasslands along continental-scale temperature and precipitation gradients. Location: Europe. Methods: We quantified functional and taxonomic richness of 55,748 vegetation plots. Six plant traits, related to resource acquisition and conservation, were analysed to describe plant community functional composition. Using a null-model approach we derived functional richness effect sizes that indicate higher or lower diversity than expected given the taxonomic richness. We assessed the variation in absolute functional and taxonomic richness and in functional richness effect sizes along gradients of minimum temperature, temperature range, annual precipitation, and precipitation seasonality using a multiple general additive modelling approach. Results: Functional and taxonomic richness was high at intermediate minimum temperatures and wide temperature ranges. Functional and taxonomic richness was low in correspondence with low minimum temperatures or narrow temperature ranges. Functional richness increased and taxonomic richness decreased at higher minimum temperatures and wide annual temperature ranges. Both functional and taxonomic richness decreased with increasing precipitation seasonality and showed a small increase at intermediate annual precipitation. Overall, effect sizes of functional richness were small. However, effect sizes indicated trait divergence at extremely low minimum temperatures and at low annual precipitation with extreme precipitation seasonality. Conclusions: Functional and taxonomic richness of European grassland communities vary considerably over temperature and precipitation gradients. Overall, they follow similar patterns over the climate gradients, except at high minimum temperatures and wide temperature ranges, where functional richness increases and taxonomic richness decreases. This contrasting pattern may trigger new ideas for studies that target specific hypotheses focused on community assembly processes. And though effect sizes were small, they indicate that it may be important to consider climate seasonality in plant diversity studies

Policing indigenous peoples on two colonial Frontiers: Australia's mounted police and Canada's North-West Mounted Police

This article examines the ways in which colonial policing and punishment of Indigenous peoples evolved as an inherent part of the colonial state-building process on the connected 19th century frontiers of south-central Australia and western Canada. Although there has been some excellent historical scholarship on the relationship between Indigenous people, police and the law in colonial settings, there has been little comparative analysis of the broader, cross-national patterns by which Indigenous peoples were made subject to British law, most especially through colonial policing practices. This article compares the roles, as well as the historical reputations, of Australia's mounted police and Canada's North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) in order to argue that these British colonies, being within the ambit of the law as British subjects did not accord Indigenous peoples the rights of protection that status was intended to impart.Amanda Nettelbeck and Russell Smandyc