Credit: Photos: Julia Kemppinen and Peter C. le Roux. Researchers are in the search for generalisable rules and patterns in nature. Biogeographer Julia Kemppinen together with her colleagues tested if plant functional traits show similar patterns along microclimatic gradients across far-apart regions from the high-Arctic Svalbard to the sub-Antarctic Marion Island. Kemppinen and her colleagues found surprisingly identical patterns. It is widely known that global vegetation patterns and plant properties follow major differences in climate. Yet, it has remained a mystery how well the same rules can be applied at very local scales. Are responses to the environment similar in plant communities along local temperature gradients in Svalbard, Greenland, Fennoscandia, and Marion island? The results published in