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47
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Introduction
I am fascinated by how we can understand relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and use them for sustainable forest management in the face of global change. In my research I focus especially on how climate extremes affect forests and how we can manipulate their diversity, structure, and composition to enhance their stability and provide multiple ecosystem services.
Additional affiliations
January 2023 - October 2023
July 2022 - December 2022
October 2018 - June 2022
Education
October 2018 - January 2023
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research
Field of study
- DFG International Research Training Group TreeDì
October 2016 - March 2017
October 2015 - August 2018
Publications
Publications (47)
Extreme climatic events threaten forests and their climate mitigation potential globally. Understanding the drivers promoting ecosystem stability is therefore considered crucial for mitigating adverse climate change effects on forests. Here, we use structural equation models to explain how tree species richness, asynchronous species dynamics, speci...
Mixed‐species forests are promoted as a forest management strategy for climate change adaptation, but whether they are more resistant to drought than monospecific forests remains contested. In particular, the trait‐based mechanisms driving the role of tree diversity under drought remain elusive.
Using tree cores from a large‐scale biodiversity expe...
Purpose of Review
International ambitions for massive afforestation and restoration are high. To make these investments sustainable and resilient under future climate change, science is calling for a shift from planting monocultures to mixed forests. But what is the scientific basis for promoting diverse plantations, and what is the feasibility of...
International commitments advocate large-scale forest restoration as a nature-based solution to climate change mitigation through carbon (C) sequestration. Mounting evidence suggests that mixed compared to monospecific planted forests may store more C, exhibit lower susceptibility to climate extremes and offer a broader range of ecosystem services....
For centuries, forests have been considered a natural safeguard for drinking water quality. We challenge this view in light of the rising frequency of climate extremes, such as droughts coinciding with high temperatures, which have caused unprecedented pulses of forest dieback globally. Drought-induced forest diebacks may jeopardize the crucial rol...
Global warming poses a major threat to forests and events of increased tree mortality are observed globally. Studying tree mortality often relies on local-level observations of dieback while large-scale analyses are lacking. Satellite remote sensing provides the spatial coverage and sufficiently high temporal and spatial resolution needed to invest...
Mixed-species forests are proposed as strategy to increase the resistance and resilience of forests to drought stress. However, evidence suggest that increasing tree species richness does not consistently enhance tree growth responses to drought. Moreover, tree diversity effects under unprecedented multiyear droughts remain uncertain, calling for a...
Global warming poses a major threat to forests, and increased tree mortality events are observed globally. Studying tree mortality often relies on local-level observations of dieback, while large-scale analyses are lacking. Satellite remote sensing provides the spatial coverage and sufficiently high temporal and spatial resolution needed to investi...
Amid global environmental crises threatening the survival of many species, including our own, a diverse group of scientists from 15 countries and members of 16 professional and academic societies, concerned with the current global environmental crisis met in February 2024 to address the urgent need to reflect on, and identify, our core values and r...
The frequency of consecutive drought years is predicted to increase due to climate change. These droughts have strong negative impacts on forest ecosystems. Mixing tree species is proposed to increase the drought resistance and resilience of tree communities. However, this promising diversity effect has not yet been investigated under extreme droug...
In many regions worldwide, forests suffer from climate change-induced droughts. The ‘hotter drought’ in Europe in 2018 with the consecutive drought years 2019 and 2020 caused large-scale growth declines and forest dieback. We investigated if tree growth responses to the 2018–2020 drought can be explained by tree functional traits related to drought...
The loss of tropical forest resilience has been linked to increased climate variability and associated droughts, but the response of tropical trees to climate extremes remains poorly understood. This limits our ability to design effective forest adaptation strategies in the tropics. Here we analyse the potential of using young trees to analyse clim...
The rising frequency and intensity of climate extremes make the stable provision of ecosystem functions and services a priority for forest management. One crucial but often overlooked forest function is the buffering of temperature extremes, that is, the cooling of hot and insulation against cold macroclimate temperatures beneath the tree canopy. T...
Understanding the mechanisms that drive biodiversity-productivity relationships is critical for guiding forest restoration. Although complementarity among trees in the canopy space has been suggested as a key mechanism for greater productivity in mixed-species tree communities, empirical evidence remains limited. Here, we used data from a tropical...
The frequency of consecutive drought years is predicted to increase due to climate change. These droughts have strong negative impacts on forest ecosystems. Mixing tree species is proposed to increase the drought resistance and resilience of tree communities. However, this promising diversity effect has not yet been investigated under extreme droug...
Understanding the mechanisms underlying diversity–productivity relationships (DPRs) is crucial to mitigating the effects of forest biodiversity loss. Tree–tree interactions in diverse communities are fundamental in driving growth rates, potentially shaping the emergent DPRs, yet remain poorly explored. Here, using data from a large‐scale forest bio...
Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of climate extremes. Forests may buffer such extreme events by creating their own microclimate below their canopy via cooling hot and insulating against cold macroclimate air temperatures. This buffering capacity of forests may be increased by tree diversity and may itself maintain forest fun...
Mixed-species forests are promoted as a forest management strategy for climate change adaptation, but whether they are more resistant to drought than monospecific forests remains contested. Particularly, the trait-based mechanisms driving the role of tree diversity under drought remain elusive.
Using tree cores from a large-scale biodiversity exper...
Tree survival affects forest biodiversity, structure and functioning. However, little is known about feedback effects of biodiversity on survival and its dependence on functional traits and interannual climatic variability.
With an individual‐based dataset from a large subtropical forest biodiversity experiment, we evaluated how species richness, f...
Intensifying climate change is successively increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events such as droughts. In 2018–2019, Central European forests were hit by two consecutive hotter drought years that were unprecedented in their severity at least in the last 250 years. Such hotter droughts, where drought coincides with a heat wav...
Droughts increasingly threaten the world's forests and their potential to mitigate climate change. In 2018–2019, Central European forests were hit by two consecutive hotter drought years, an unprecedented phenomenon that is likely to occur more frequently with climate change. Here, we examine tree growth and physiological stress responses (increase...
National and local governments need to step up efforts to effectively implement the post‐2020 global biodiversity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity to halt and reverse worsening biodiversity trends. Drawing on recent advances in interdisciplinary biodiversity science, we propose a framework for improved implementation by national...
There is compelling evidence for positive effects of plant diversity on the functioning of forests and agroecosystems. This information is increasingly used to optimize production systems that provide a wide range of ecosystem services. While agroforestry is actively promoted for the sustainable intensification of agriculture and restoration of deg...
Eight years of studying coffee ecophysiology and monitoring ecosystem
services (ES) in a large coffee farm in Costa Rica revealed
several practical recommendations for farmers and policy makers.
The cropping system studied within our collaborative observatory
(Coffee-Flux) corresponds to a coffee-based agroforestry system
(AFS) under the shade of l...
As of 2020, the world has an estimated 290 million ha of planted forests and this number is continuously increasing. Of these, 131 million ha are monospecific planted forests under intensive management. Although monospecific planted forests are important in providing timber, they harbor less biodiversity and are potentially more susceptible to dist...
Droughts increasingly threaten the world’s forests and their potential to mitigate climate change. In 2018-2019, Central European forests were hit by two consecutive hotter drought years, an unprecedented phenomenon that is likely to occur more frequently with climate change. Here, we examine tree growth and physiological stress responses (increase...
Deutsche Zusammenfassung: Der Leipziger Auwald ist ein streng geschützter Hartholzauenwald mit einer hohen und spezifischen Biodiversität. Diese verdankt er seiner langen Habitattradition, seinem Baumartenreichtum und seiner Nutzungsgeschichte. Flussregulierung und Deichbau in den 1930er Jahren haben das Gebiet entwässert und die notwendigen Überfl...
Extreme climatic events threaten forests and their climate mitigation potential globally. Understanding the drivers promoting ecosystems stability is therefore considered crucial to mitigate adverse climate change effects on forests. Here, we use structural equation models to explain how tree species richness, asynchronous species dynamics and dive...
Purpose of Review
Despite the rapidly increasing use of resilience indices to analyze responses of trees and forests to disturbance events, there is so far no common framework to apply and interpret these indices for different purposes. Therefore, this review aims to identify and discuss various shortcomings and pitfalls of commonly used resilience...
Variations in crown forms promote canopy space‐use and productivity in mixed‐species forests. However, we have a limited understanding on how this response is mediated by changes in within‐tree biomass allocation. Here, we explored the role of changes in tree allometry, biomass allocation and architecture in shaping diversity–productivity relations...
Hardwood-dominated forests in south-central Chile have shade-tolerant and mid-tolerant tree species capable of regenerating and growing well in partial shade. To test the potential for using an uneven-aged silviculture in these forests, we established single-tree selection treatments at two mid-elevation sites within the Evergreen forest type in th...
Biodiversity is considered to mitigate detrimental impacts of climate change on the functioning of forest ecosystems, such as drought‐induced decline in forest productivity. However, previous studies produced controversial results and experimental evidence is rare. Specifically, the biological mechanisms underlying mitigation effects remain unclear...
There is increasing evidence that mixed-species forests can provide multiple ecosystem services at a higher level than their monospecific counterparts. However, most studies concerning tree diversity and ecosystem functioning relationships use data from forest inventories (under noncontrolled conditions) or from very young plantation experiments. H...
This preprint has been published in Current Forestry Reports: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40725-020-00119-2 Abstract: Quantifying the resilience of forest ecosystems in response to droughts is fundamentally important to assess their capacity to function under intensifying climate change with more extreme droughts. The concept propose...
There is increasing evidence that mixed-species forests can provide multiple ecosystem services at a higher level than their monospecific counterparts. Here,
we provide insights into the temporal development of diversity-productivity (DPRs) and diversity-stability relationships (DSRs) in the oldest tree diversity
experiment in the tropics, ‘Sardini...
The projected increase in frequency and intensity of droughts with climatic
change threatens tree growth and survival. Tree ring and stable isotope analyses
in temperate forests have shown that heterospecific tree neighbourhoods may
improve water use and growth compared to conspecific ones, but also negative
effects have been reported. Species-spec...
Greater understanding of the influences on long-term coffee productivity are needed to develop systems that are profitable, while maximizing ecosystem services and lowering negative environmental impacts. We examine a long-term experiment (15 years) established in Costa Rica in 2000 and compare intensive conventional (IC) coffee production under fu...
The Valdivian temperate rainforest of Chile is facing an ongoing process of degradation through mismanagement. At the same time, global change (e.g. climate change or increased spread of pathogens) calls for management approaches that maintain stands that are resilient in the face of an uncertain future. We expect that the resilience of managed Val...
Valdivian temperate rainforests cover a great geographical extension in south-central Chile. Mature and old-growth forests of this type are uneven-aged, have negative exponential diameter distributions, and are dominated by a suite of valuable hardwood tree species tolerant or mid-tolerant to shade, where the later have higher growth rates. Single-...
Dieser Tagungsbeitrag ist inzwischen in Global Change Biology veröffentlicht: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14792
Nach zwei Jahrzehnten der Forschung zur Beziehung von Baumartendiversität und Ökosystemfunktionen gibt es inzwischen zahlreiche Belege, dass Diversität die Funktionen von Waldökosystemen positiv beeinflusst und Mischbestände höhere Stab...
Background: The Valdivian temperate rainforest, one of the world’s 25 biodiversity hotspots, is under a continued process of degradation through mismanagement. An approach to reverse this situation might be the development of uneven-aged silviculture, combining biodiversity conservation and timber production.
Methods: We examined the short-term eff...
Eight years of monitoring ecophysiology and ecosystem services (ES) in a large coffee farm of Costa Rica yields a range of practical applications for the farmer and stakeholders, thanks to numerous scientific actors and disciplines contributing to our collaborative observatory (Coffee-Flux). • A lot of ecosystem services depend on the soil properti...
Uneven-aged silviculture has not been widely practiced in Chile, where plantations are generally managed in short even-aged rotations and most native forests are high-graded. However, there are many ecological, socio-cultural and economic reasons that seem to justify the application of uneven-aged silviculture in Chile. Here we provide data on comp...