Author Biographies

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

Johannes (Hans) H.C. Cornelissen (corresponding author) is a full professor at Systems

Ecology, VU University Amsterdam. He uses functional trait variation among plant species to understand how vegetation composition orchestrates biogeochemical cycling, with focus on decomposition, fire and productivity. He applies this approach to predicting how global changes will alter soil functions through species shifts.

Address: Systems Ecology, Dept. of Ecological Science, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences,

VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

Ute Sass-Klaassen is an assistant professor at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management

Group at Wageningen University. She combines forest ecology, wood anatomy and dendrochronology and studies relationship between tree growth and environmental factors in temperate and tropical forests.

Address: Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Centre for Ecosystems,

Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands

Lourens Poorter is an associate professor at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management

Group at Wageningen University. He investigates how functional traits shape species performance and distribution along environmental gradients; their consequences for community assembly and species coexistence; and how traits scale-up at the community level, determining ecosystem processes and services.

Address: Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Centre for Ecosystems,

Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands

Koert van Geffen is a PhD candidate at the Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group at

Wageningen University. He currently investigates the effects of artificial light on ecosystems in the Netherlands. He still cultivates a strong interest in decomposition and carbon cycling, which took him to Bolivian forests and subarctic ecosystems during his MSc studies.

Address: Nature Conservation and Plant Ecology Group, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen

University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Richard S.P. van Logtestijn is a research technician at Systems Ecology, VU University

Amsterdam. He specialises in global change ecology of northern ecosystems and carbon and nutrient cycling processes. He frequently applies stable isotope techniques to track carbon and nitrogen through ecosystems and organisms at different trophic levels.

VU University, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Jurgen van Hal is a research technician at Systems Ecology, VU University Amsterdam.

Among many other ecological activities he has a particular interest in invertebrate animals, which is coming out useful more and more in investigations on the role of invertebrates in decomposition processes and climate change ecology.

Leo Goudzwaard is a research technician at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management

Group at Wageningen University. Both his research activities and his intensive teaching programme are focussed on forest ecology and nature conservation.

Address: Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Centre for Ecosystems, Wageningen

University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands

Frank J. Sterck is an assistant professor at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management

Group at Wageningen University. He is a forest ecologist and ecophysiologist with a strong interest in mathematical modelling of tree growth and vegetation dynamics. He has worked in several tropical and temperate systems with specific focus on Ethiopian woodland.

René K.W.M. Klaassen is a senior researcher at SHR Timber Research in Wageningen. His

PhD (Leiden University) was on wood anatomy. At SHR he is doing research on timber species in relation to resistance against wood degraders. The company tests, monitors and researches new opportunities for timber uses; sustainable applications and timber uses are important.

Address: SHR Timber Research, Nieuwe Kanaal 9b, 6709 PA Wageningen, The Netherlands

Annemieke van der Wal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in Wageningen. She is a microbial ecologist who has worked on the role of microbial communities in nature conservation, especially in the transformation of agricultural land into new nature. She recently started new studies on competitive and facilitative interactions among microbes in decaying wood.

Address: Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-

KNAW), Droevendaalsesteeg 10, 6708 PB, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Grégoire T. Freschet is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Forest Ecology and

Management at SLU in Umeå, Sweden. His PhD study addressed how whole-plant economic strategies drive carbon and nutrient cycling in subarctic terrestrial forests and freshwater ecosystems’. He currently studies the effects that persistent past land use by indigenous

Saami people has on the current functioning of boreal forest ecosystems.

Address: Department of Forest Ecology and Management at SLU in Umeå, Sweden

Henk Eshuis is an ecologist who recently graduated from his MSc studies in Forest and

Nature Conservation, specialisation Ecology at Wageningen University. His Msc studies took him to Ivory Coast camera trapping pigmy hippos and to Slovakia working on soil respiration and vegetation succession after a catastrophic storm in Norway spruce dominated forest.

Juan Zuo is a PhD student at Systems Ecology, VU University Amsterdam. Her MSc studies, at SW China University, Chongqing, highlighted the interacting roles of plant pH and soil pH on litter decomposition. Her current work research is on the biodiversity associated with wood decay of different tree species at subsequent decay stages.

Wietse de Boer is a senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in Wageningen.

He is a microbial ecologist with a particular interest in the role of fungal and bacterial interactions in agricultural, forest and natural systems, combining ecological and molecular analyses. A specific focus of his research concerns interactions between bacteria and fungi in decaying wood.

Address: Department of Microbial Ecology, Netherlands, Institute of Ecology (NIOO-

KNAW), Droevendaalsesteeg 10, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands Teun Lamers is an MSc student at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group at

Wageningen University. His current MSc research relates functional traits of Dutch tree species to their ecological strategies.

Monique Weemstra is an MSc student at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group at Wageningen University. Her current MSc research is on linking growth patterns of multiple

Dutch tree species to annual climatic variation over four decades.

Vincent Cretin is an MSc student at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group at

Wageningen University. He takes an interest in forest ecology and did a thesis project on the effects of the exotic forest invader Prunus serotina on soil processes.

Rozan Martin is an MSc student at the Ecology and Biodiversity Group at Utrecht

University. He models carbon stocks and dynamics in vegetation and soil. Address: Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht

University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands

Jan den Ouden is an assistant professor at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group at Wageningen University. Both his research and teaching cover a broad spectrum of forest ecology, with specific focus on forest dynamics, seed dispersal and forest management.

Matty P. Berg is an associate professor at Animal Ecology at VU University in Amsterdam.

His research interests cover spatial ecology, invertebrate biodiversity and its effect on ecosystem functions, food web ecology, and global change ecology. Recently he has begun to apply the trait concept to study invertebrate community responses and effects of soil animals on ecosystems.

Address: Animal Ecology, Dept. of Ecological Science, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences,

Rien Aerts is a full professor and head of Systems Ecology at VU University Amsterdam.

His research covers many aspects of nutrient and carbon cycling as well as global change ecology, with specific interest in plant nutrient use efficiency, litter decomposition, ecosystem response to nitrogen deposition and arctic ecosystems under a warming climate. Address: Systems Ecology, Dept. of Ecological Science, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences,

Godefridus (Frits) M.J Mohren is a full professor and head of the Forest Ecology and

Forest Management Group at Wageningen University. His research focuses on forest production ecology and forest management, which involves tree ecophysiology and forest modelling. These models incorporate environmental impacts of natural disturbances, pollutants and climatic changes

Mariet M. Hefting is an assistant professor at the Ecology and Biodiversity Group at Utrecht

University. Her research focuses predominantly on microbial driven soil processes

related to nitrogen and carbon cycling. She has a long-term interest in landscape-scale

nutrient and water dynamics, including the identification of hot spots and ‘hot

moments’ of nitrous oxide emission in riverine ecosystems. More recently she has

become strongly involved in research into soil carbon sequestration as dependent on

plant litter secondary chemistry.

Address: Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht

University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands