Gerhard Bönisch

• PhD
• Manager at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

Despite the progress in the measurement and accessibility of plant trait information, acquiring sufficiently complete data from enough species to answer broad‐scale questions in plant functional ecology and biogeography remains challenging. A common way to overcome this challenge is by imputation, or ‘gap‐filling' of trait values. This has proven a...

Plant trait data are used to quantify how plants respond to environmental factors and can act as indicators of ecosystem function. Measured trait values are influenced by genetics, trade‐offs, competition, environmental conditions, and phenology. These interacting effects on traits are poorly characterized across taxa, and for many traits, measurem...

Wood density is a fundamental property related to tree biomechanics and hydraulic function while playing a crucial role in assessing vegetation carbon stocks by linking volumetric retrieval and a mass estimate. This study provides a high‐resolution map of the global distribution of tree wood density at the 0.01° (~1 km) spatial resolution, derived...

The relationship between phylogenetic diversity (PD) and functional diversity (FD) is important for understanding the mechanisms of community assembly. The traditional view assumes a coupled (positively correlated) relationship between these two diversity measures, suggesting that competitive exclusion and environmental filtering are important driv...

In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important...

Ecological theory predicts close relationships between macroclimate and functional traits. Yet, global climatic gradients correlate only weakly with the trait composition of local plant communities, suggesting that important factors have been ignored. Here, we investigate the consistency of climate-trait relationships for plant communities in Europ...

Here we provide the ‘Global Spectrum of Plant Form and Function Dataset’, containing species mean values for six vascular plant traits. Together, these traits –plant height, stem specific density, leaf area, leaf mass per area, leaf nitrogen content per dry mass, and diaspore (seed or spore) mass – define the primary axes of variation in plant form...

Due to massive energetic investments in woody support structures, trees are subject to unique physiological, mechanical, and ecological pressures not experienced by herbaceous plants. Despite a wealth of studies exploring trait relationships across the entire plant kingdom, the dominant traits underpinning these unique aspects of tree form and func...

A bstract Due to massive energetic investments in woody support structures, trees are subject to unique physiological, mechanical, and ecological pressures not experienced by herbaceous plants. When considering trait relationships across the entire plant kingdom, plant trait frameworks typically must omit traits unique to large woody species, there...

In a time of rapid global change, the question of what determines patterns in species abundance distribution remains a priority for understanding the complex dynamics of ecosystems. The constrained maximization of information entropy provides a framework for the understanding of such complex systems dynamics by a quantitative analysis of important...

Background and Aims The acquisitive-conservative axis of plant ecological strategies results in a pattern of leaf trait covariation that captures the balance between leaf construction costs and plant growth potential. Studies evaluating trait covariation within species are scarcer, and have mostly dealt with variation in response to environmental g...

A large body of research shows that biodiversity loss can reduce ecosystem functioning. However, much of the evidence for this relationship is drawn from biodiversity–ecosystem functioning experiments in which biodiversity loss is simulated by randomly assembling communities of varying species diversity, and ecosystem functions are measured. This r...

Nutrition has been hypothesized as an important constraint on brain evolution. However, it is unclear whether the availability of specific nutrients or the difficulty of locating high quality diets limits brain evolution, especially over long periods of time. We show that dietary nutrient content predicted brain size across 42 species of butterflie...

Aim Intraspecific trait variation (ITV) within natural plant communities can be large, influencing local ecological processes and dynamics. Here, we shed light on how ITV in vegetative and floral traits responds to large‐scale abiotic and biotic gradients (i.e., climate and species richness). Specifically, we tested whether associations of ITV with...

Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research sp...

A large body of research shows that biodiversity loss can reduce ecosystem functioning, thus providing support for the conservation of biological diversity. Much of the evidence for this relationship is drawn from biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments (hereafter: biodiversity experiments), in which biodiversity loss is simulated by randoml...

Scientists have known for over a century that resource addition can lead to species loss from plant communities. Recent studies have also shown that resource addition can substantially restructure communities by altering their functional and taxonomic composition-even when species richness remains unchanged. Understanding which aspects of community...

The origins of agriculture were key events in human history, during which people came to depend for their food on small numbers of animal and plant species. However, the biological traits determining which species were domesticated for food provision, and which were not, are unclear. Here, we investigate the phylogenetic distribution of livestock a...

A substantial body of evidence has demonstrated that biodiversity stabilizes ecosystem functioning over time in grassland ecosystems. However, the relative importance of different facets of biodiversity underlying the diversity-stability relationship remains unclear. Here we use data from 39 grassland biodiversity experiments and structural equatio...

We lack strong empirical evidence for links between plant attributes (plant community attributes and functional traits) and the distribution of soil microbial communities at large spatial scales. Using datasets from two contrasting regions and ecosystem types in Australia and England, we report that aboveground plant community attributes, such as d...

Aim Numerous studies have reported changes in first flowering day (FFD‐changes) in response to changes in climate. However, regarding the direction (advances versus delays) and the intensity (number of days/decade) of FFD‐changes, species show differences even when observed in the same location. Here, we examine the extent to which plant traits can...

Significance Currently, Earth system models (ESMs) represent variation in plant life through the presence of a small set of plant functional types (PFTs), each of which accounts for hundreds or thousands of species across thousands of vegetated grid cells on land. By expanding plant traits from a single mean value per PFT to a full distribution per...

Drought events are increasing globally, and reports of consequent forest mortality are widespread. However, due to a lack of a quantitative global synthesis, it is still not clear whether drought-induced mortality rates differ among global biomes and whether functional traits influence the risk of drought-induced mortality. To address these uncerta...

Ecological research produces a tremendous amount of data, but the diversity in scales and topics covered and the ways in which studies are carried out result in large numbers of small, idiosyncratic data sets using heterogeneous terminologies. Such heterogeneity can be attributed, in part, to a lack of standards for acquiring, organizing and descri...

Dynamic global vegetation models are used to predict the response of vegetation to climate change. They are essential for planning ecosystem management, understanding carbon cycle–climate feedbacks, and evaluating the potential impacts of climate change on global ecosystems. JULES (the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator) represents terrestrial pro...

A full text is currently unavailable. Suggest contact the lead author: sdiaz@efn.uncor.edu Kind regards, andy g

Dynamic global vegetation models are used to predict the response of vegetation to climate change. They are essential for planning ecosystem management, understanding carbon cycleclimate feedbacks, and evaluating the potential impacts of climate change on global ecosystems. JULES (the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator) represents terrestrial proc...

Earth is home to a remarkable diversity of plant forms and life histories, yet comparatively few essential trait combinations have proved evolutionarily viable in today’s terrestrial biosphere. By analysing worldwide variation in six major traits critical to growth, survival and reproduction within the largest sample of vascular plant species ever...

Plant functional types ( PFT s) aggregate the variety of plant species into a small number of functionally different classes. We examined to what extent plant traits, which reflect species’ functional adaptations, can capture functional differences between predefined PFT s and which traits optimally describe these differences. We applied Gaussian k...

Since 70 % of global forests are managed and forests impact the global carbon cycle and the energy exchange with the overlying atmosphere, forest management has the potential to mitigate climate change. Yet, none of the land-surface models used in Earth system models, and therefore none of today's predictions of future climate, accounts for the int...

1. Soil carbon (C) storage is a key ecosystem service. Soil C stocks play a vital role in soil fertility and climate regulation, but the factors that control these stocks at regional and national scales are unknown, particularly when their composition and stability are considered. As a result, their mapping relies on either unreliable proxy measure...

Aim Functional traits of organisms are key to understanding and predicting biodiversity and ecological change, which motivates continuous collection of traits and their integration into global databases. Such trait matrices are inherently sparse, severely limiting their usefulness for further analyses. On the other hand, traits are characterized by...

Leaf dark respiration (Rdark ) is an important yet poorly quantified component of the global carbon cycle. Given this, we analyzed a new global database of Rdark and associated leaf traits. Data for 899 species were compiled from 100 sites (from the Arctic to the tropics). Several woody and nonwoody plant functional types (PFTs) were represented. M...

Since 70% of global forests are managed and forests impact the global carbon cycle and the energy exchange with the overlying atmosphere, forest management has the potential to mitigate climate change. Yet, none of the land surface models used in Earth system models, and therefore none of today’s predictions of future climate, account for the inter...

Background / Purpose: During the last years the TRY initiative has combined an unprecedented number of plant trait measurements and has made these data available for trait-based approaches in ecology and biodiversity science and for the improvement of vegetation models ( www.try-db.org ). Main conclusion: We presented recent progress with resp...

Aim Recent meta‐analyses have revealed that plant traits and their phylogenetic history influence decay rates of dead wood and leaf litter, but it remains unknown if decay rates of wood and litter covary over a wide range of tree species and across ecosystems. We evaluated the relationships between species‐specific wood and leaf litter decomposabil...

In many current dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs), including those incorporated into Earth system models (ESMs), terrestrial vegetation is represented by a small number of plant functional types (PFTs), each with fixed properties irrespective of their predicted occurrence. This contrasts with natural vegetation, in which many plant traits va...

1. The integrative research field of biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (BEF) requires close collaboration between researchers from different disciplines working on different scales in time, space as well as taxon resolution. Data can describe anything from abiotic ecosystem components, to organisms, parts of organisms, genetic information or eleme...

In current dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs), including those incorporated into Earth System Models (ESMs), terrestrial vegetation is represented by a small number of plant functional types (PFTs), each with fixed properties irrespective of their predicted occurrence. This contrasts with natural vegetation, in which many plant traits vary sy...

Plant traits – the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants and their organs – determine how primary producers respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, influence ecosystem processes and services and provide a link from species richness to ecosystem functional diversity. T...

1. Plant traits are fundamental for understanding and predicting vegetation responses to global changes, and they provide a promising basis towards a more quantitative and predictive approach to ecology. As a consequence, information on plant traits is rapidly accumulating, and there is a growing need for efficient database tools that enable the as...

Several recent studies have considered the potential impact of climate change on regional wind intensity. However, previous wind speed studies in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) present conflicting results for wind speed trends in relation to climate drivers. This study analyzes the percentiles (50th, 75th, and 95th) of the strongly positively skewed d...

Several recent studies have considered the potential impact of climate change on regional wind intensity. However, previous wind speed studies in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) present conflicting results for wind speed trends in relation to climate drivers. This study analyzes the percentiles (50th, 75th, and 95th) of the strongly skewed distribution...

Fifteen-minute Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) infrared dust index images are used to identify dust source areas. The observations of dust source activation (DSA) are compiled in a 1° × 1° map for the Sahara and Sahel, including temporal information at 3-hourly resolution. Here we use this dat...

During the summer of 1996 the nuclear submarine USS Pogy occupied a line of stations extending through the middle of the Canadian Basin between about 88°N, 44°W (Lomonosov Ridge) and about 78°N, 144°W (center of the Canada Basin). CTD/Niskin bottle casts extending to 1600 m were carried out at eight stations, providing the first high-quality temper...

During the past decades, a variety of transient tracers have been used to derive information on pathways and mean residence times of oceanic water masses. Here, we discuss how information obtained in such studies can be applied to studying the spreading of dissolved pollutants in the ocean. The discussion focuses on the transient tracers tritium/3H...

We present long-term observations of temperature, salinity, tritium/3He, chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC11), and chlorofluorocarbon-12 (CFC12) for the central Greenland Gyre. The time series span the periods between 1952 and 1994 (temperature), 1981 and 1994 (salinity), 1972 and 1994(tritium/3He,) and 1982 and 1994 (CFCs). The correlation between hydrog...

We present Δ14C data collected during three cruises to the Arctic Ocean that took place in the summers of 1987 (POLARSTERN cruise ARK IV/3), 1991 (ARCTIC 91 Expedition), and 1994 (Arctic Ocean Section 94). The cruise tracks of these three expeditions cover all major basins of the Arctic Ocean (Nansen, Amundsen, Makarov and Canada basins), and can b...

Multi-tracer data sets collected in the Greenland/Norwegian seas and the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean in the 1970s and 1980s are used, together with temperature and salinity, to (1) constrain box model calculations of the deep water formation rates in the Greenland Sea and the Eurasian Basin of the Arctic Ocean, and (2) estimate the exchange...

The distributions of , 14C and 39Ar observed in the period between 1985 and 1987 in the Greenland/Norwegian Seas and the Nansen Basin of the Arctic Ocean are presented. The data are used to outline aspects of the large-scale circulation and the exchange of deep water between the Greenland/Norwegian Seas and the Nansen Basin. Additionally, semi-quan...

We present (delta 14) C and (39) Ar data collected in the Nansen, Amundsen and Makarov basins during two expeditions to the central Arctic Ocean . The data are used, together with published (delta 14) C values, to describe the distribution of (delta 14) C in all major basins of the Arctic Ocean, as well as the (39) Ar distributions, we derive infor...

The mean residence time of river-runoff on the shelves and in the halocline of the Arctic Ocean is estimated from salinity and tracer data (tritium, 3He and the 18O/16O ratio). These estimates are derived from comparison of apparent tracer ages of the halocline waters using a combination of tracers that yield different information: (1) the tritium...

We present ΔA 14 C and 39 Ar data collected in the Nansen, Amundsen and Makarov basins during two expeditions to the central Arctic Ocean (RV Polarstern cruises ARK IV/3, 1987 and ARK VIII/3, 1991). The data are used, together with published Δ 14 C values, to describe the distribution of Δ 14 C in all major basins of the Arctic Ocean (Nansen, Amund...

Three separate tracer ratio-based water mass ages (CCl4/F11, tritium/3 He and F11/F12) are calculated for the 1987 oceanographic section by R.V. Polarstern across the Nansen Basin, Arctic Ocean. The CCl4/F11 ratio ages are shown to be in good agreement with the apparent tritium/3He ages throughout the age range studied (5\2—30 years) and with F11/F...

Hydrographic observations and measurements of the concentrations of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have suggested that the formation of Greenland Sea Deep Water (GSDW) slowed down considerably during the 1980s. Such a decrease is related to weakened convection in the Greenland Sea and thus could have significant impact on the properties of the waters f...

Tritium/3He-, 14C- and helium/neon data from a station located in the central Nansen Basin of the Arctic Ocean are reported and discussed. It is demonstrated that 3He is a valuable tracer for studies of the upper water column and, together with tritium, 3He provides a rough time scale of the ventilation of these waters. The apparent tritium/3He age...

1 Introduction.- 2 General Procedure.- 3 System Configuration.- 3.1 Gas Extraction Units.- 3.2 Inlet System.- 3.3 Mass Spectrometer.- 3.4 Computer Control.- 4 System and Handling Details.- 4.1 Gas Extraction Systems.- 4.1.1 Small Volume Samples.- 4.1.2 Large Volume Samples.- 4.2 Inlet System.- 4.2.1 Sample Inlet.- 4.2.2 Air Standards.- 4.2.3 Sample...

Prior to operation, the system is baked for 1 hour at a temperature of ≈ 100°C and pumped to a pressure of ≈ 10−5 mbar. Cooling of cold trap CT1 with liquid nitrogen reduces the pressure to about 2 10−6 mbar. The sample is transferred from the copper tube to the glass bulb by removal of the lower pinchoff clamp, pressing of the copper seal and heat...

To demonstrate the capability of the system a tritium profile from the Weddell Sea (Antarctica) is shown in Fig. 21. These measurements clearly show that in the southern hemisphere the structure of the tritium profiles can be only resolved by measurement of tritium via 3He ingrowth. The good agreement of the duplicate samples is evidence for the ov...

Gas extraction from the water samples for helium isotope measurement is done in an all metal vacuum extraction line (Fig. 1). Samples contained in copper tubes (CT, volume about 40 cm3) sealed by stainless steel pinch-off clamps (CL; Fig. 1 a) are connected to the extraction system via O-ring fitting (OF). A bulb for expansion of the water (EB) and...

There are many potential sources of tritium and/or 3He blanks in all individual steps of the measurement procedure. These blanks have to be subtracted from the measured signal before it is converted to final data. To do the correction properly, the blank components have to be separated and the effect of the correction on the precision of the measur...

The measurement of helium isotopes includes three steps. The first step is to collect water samples in the field and to store them in appropriate containers for shore based measurement. The second step is quantitative gas extraction from the water samples and storage of the extracted gases in special glass ampoules before they are measured mass spe...

For small volume mass spectrometric tritium measurement an intercalibration with the Heidelberg low-level β-counting laboratory was done. For this purpose samples taken on a station in the Arctic Ocean were measured both mass spectrometrically and using the low-level counting technique. The accuracy of the βcounting results is ±5% with a detection...

Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 1991.