Dr. Florian Schnabel
Lecturer / Senior scientist
University of Freiburg
Chair of Silviculture
Stefan-Meier-Str. 76
79104 Freiburg Germany
Room No. 808
Tel. +49 761 203 3679
Research interests
I am fascinated by how we can understand biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships and use them for sustainable forest management in the face of global change. I am particularly interested in how climate extremes, such as droughts, affect forests and how we can manipulate their diversity, structure, and composition to enhance their stability, temperature buffering capacity, and provision of multiple ecosystem services.
To address these questions, I work in different forest ecosystems, from temperate forests in Europe and Chile to (sub-)tropical forests in Panama and China. I focus especially on the planted tree diversity experiments of TreeDivNet. I use approaches from various fields including silviculture| forest ecology | dendroecology | functional ecology | microclimate ecology.
Short CV
Current
Lecturer, Chair of Silviculture, University of Freiburg, Germany
2023
Postdoctoral researcher, Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity, Leipzig University, Germany
2022
Postdoctoral researcher, International Research Training Group TreeDì, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and Leipzig University, Germany
2018-2022
Doctoral researcher, International Research Training Group TreeDì, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and Leipzig University, Germany
2015-2018
M.Sc. Forest Sciences (Specialization International Forestry), University of Freiburg, Germany
2017
Research fellow, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Bogor, Indonesia
2016-2017
Exchange semester, Wageningen University and Research (WUR), Netherlands
2011-2015
B.Sc. Environmental Sciences & B.Sc. in International Forestry, University of Freiburg, Germany
2014
Research fellow, Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Centre (CATIE), Turrialba, Costa Rica
2013-2014
Exchange year, University Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
Research profiles
Publications (selection)
Schnabel, F., Purrucker, S., Schmitt, L., Engelmann, R.A., Kahl, A., Richter, R., Seele-Dilbat, C., Skiadaresis, G., Wirth, C. (2022) Cumulative growth and stress responses to the 2018–2019 drought in a European floodplain forest. Global Change Biology, 28(5): 1870-1883. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16028
Schnabel, F.*, Liu, X.*, Kunz, M., Barry, K.E., Bongers, F.J., Bruelheide, H., Fichtner, A., Härdtle, W., Li, S., Pfaff C.-T., Schmid, B., Schwarz, J.A., Tang, Z., Yang, B., Bauhus, J., von Oheimb, G., Ma, K.P., Wirth, C. (2021). Species richness stabilizes productivity via asynchrony and drought-tolerance diversity in a large-scale tree biodiversity experiment. Science Advances, 7(51). *Co-first authors. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abk1643
Messier, C., Bauhus, J., Sousa-Silva, R., Auge, H., Baeten, L., Barsoum, N., Bruelheide, H., Caldwell, B., Cavender-Bares, J., Dhiedt, E., Eisenhauer, N., Ganade, G., Gravel, D., Guillemot, J., Hall, J.S., Hector, A., Hérault, B., Jactel, H., Koricheva, J., Kreft, H., Mereu, S., Muys, B., Nock, C.A., Paquette, A., Parker, J.D., Perring, M.P., Ponette, Q., Potvin, C., Reich, P.B., Scherer-Lorenzen, M., Schnabel, F., Verheyen, K., Weih, M., Wollni, M., Zemp, D.C. (2022) For the sake of resilience and multifunctionality, let’s diversify planted forests! Conservation Letters, 15 (1): e12829. http://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12829
Schwarz, J.*, Schnabel, F.*, Bauhus, J. (2021) A conceptual framework and experimental design for analysing the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) in agroforestry systems. Basic and Applied Ecology, 55: 133-151. *Co-first authors. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2021.05.002
Wirth, C., Engelmann, R.A., Haack, N., Hartmann, H., Richter, R., Schnabel, F., Scholz, M., Seele-Dilbat, C. (2021) Naturschutz und Klimawandel im Leipziger Auwald. Biologie in unserer Zeit, 51(1): 55–65. https://doi.org/10.11576/BIUZ-4107
Madsen, C., Potvin, C., Hall, J., Sinacore, K., Turner, B.L., Schnabel, F. (2020) Coarse root architecture: Neighbourhood and abiotic environmental effects on five tropical tree species growing in mixtures and monocultures. Forest Ecology and Management, 460: 117851. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2019.117851
Schwarz, J., Skiadaresis, G., Kohler, M., Kunz, J., Schnabel, F., Vitali, V., Bauhus, J. (2020) Quantifying Growth Responses of Trees to Drought—a Critique of Commonly Used Resilience Indices and Recommendations for Future Studies. Current Forestry Reports, 6: 185–200. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40725-020-00119-2
Schnabel, F., Schwarz, J.A., Dănescu, A., Fichtner, A., Nock, C.A., Bauhus, J., Potvin, C. (2019) Drivers of productivity and its temporal stability in a tropical tree diversity experiment. Global Change Biology, 25(12): 4257-4272. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14792
Schnabel, F., De Melo Virginio Filho, E., Xu, S., Fisk, I. D., Roupsard, O., Haggar, J. (2018) Shade trees: a determinant to the relative success of organic versus conventional coffee production. Agroforestry Systems, 92(6): 1535-1549. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-017-0100-y