TY - GEN A1 - Bendix, Jörg A1 - Aguire, Nicolay A1 - Beck, Erwin A1 - Bräuning, Achim A1 - Brandl, Roland A1 - Breuer, Lutz A1 - Böhning‑Gaese, Katrin A1 - Paula, Mateus Dantas de A1 - Hickler, Thomas A1 - Homeier, Jürgen A1 - Inclan, Diego A1 - Leuschner, Christoph A1 - Neuschulz, Eike L. A1 - Schleuning, Matthias A1 - Suarez, Juan P. A1 - Trachte, Katja A1 - Wilcke, Wolfgang A1 - Windhorst, David A1 - Farwig, Nina T1 - A research framework for projecting ecosystem change in highly diverse tropical mountain ecosystems T2 - Oecologia N2 - Tropical mountain ecosystems are threatened by climate and land-use changes. Their diversity and complexity make projections how they respond to environmental changes challenging. A suitable way are trait-based approaches, by distinguishing between response traits that determine the resistance of species to environmental changes and effect traits that are relevant for species' interactions, biotic processes, and ecosystem functions. The combination of those approaches with land surface models (LSM) linking the functional community composition to ecosystem functions provides new ways to project the response of ecosystems to environmental changes. With the interdisciplinary project RESPECT, we propose a research framework that uses a trait-based response-effect-framework (REF) to quantify relationships between abiotic conditions, the diversity of functional traits in communities, and associated biotic processes, informing a biodiversity-LSM. We apply the framework to a megadiverse tropical mountain forest. We use a plot design along an elevation and a land-use gradient to collect data on abiotic drivers, functional traits, and biotic processes. We integrate these data to build the biodiversity-LSM and illustrate how to test the model. REF results show that aboveground biomass production is not directly related to changing climatic conditions, but indirectly through associated changes in functional traits. Herbivory is directly related to changing abiotic conditions. The biodiversity-LSM informed by local functional trait and soil data improved the simulation of biomass production substantially. We conclude that local data, also derived from previous projects (platform Ecuador), are key elements of the research framework. We specify essential datasets to apply this framework to other mountain ecosystems. KW - Biodiversity-land surface model KW - Functional traits KW - High mountains KW - Research framework KW - Response-effect-framework Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04852-8 SN - 0029-8549 SN - 1432-1939 VL - 195 IS - 3 SP - 589 EP - 600 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Breuer, Lutz A1 - Exbrayat, Jean-François A1 - Plesca, Ina A1 - Buytaert, Wouter A1 - Ehmann, Theresa A1 - Peters, Thorsten A1 - Timbe, Edison A1 - Trachte, Katja A1 - Windhorst, David T1 - Global Climate Change Impacts on Local Climate and Hydrology T2 - Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Environmental Change in a Tropical Mountain Ecosystem of South Ecuador N2 - An interdisciplinary research unit consisting of 30 teams in the natural, economic and social sciences analyzed biodiversity and ecosystem services of a mountain rainforest ecosystem in the hotspot of the tropical Andes, with special reference to past, current and future environmental changes. The group assessed ecosystem services using data from ecological field and scenario-driven model experiments, and with the help of comparative field surveys of the natural forest and its anthropogenic replacement system for agriculture. The book offers insights into the impacts of environmental change on various service categories mentioned in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005): cultural, regulating, supporting and provisioning ecosystem services. Examples focus on biodiversity of plants and animals including trophic networks, and abiotic/biotic parameters such as soils, regional climate, water, nutrient and sediment cycles. The types of threats considered include land use and climate changes, as well as atmospheric fertilization. In terms of regulating and provisioning services, the emphasis is primarily on water regulation and supply as well as climate regulation and carbon sequestration. With regard to provisioning services, the synthesis of the book provides science-based recommendations for a sustainable land use portfolio including several options such as forestry, pasture management and the practices of indigenous peoples. In closing, the authors show how they integrated the local society by pursuing capacity building in compliance with the CBD-ABS (Convention on Biological Diversity - Access and Benefit Sharing), in the form of education and knowledge transfer for application. Y1 - 2013 SN - 978-3-642-38137-9 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38137-9_19 SP - 265 EP - 274 PB - Springer-Verlag GmbH CY - Berlin [u.a.] ET - 1 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Grigusova, Paulina A1 - Limberger, Oliver A1 - Murkute, Charuta A1 - Pucha-Cofrep, Franz A1 - Gonzalez-Jaramillo, Victor Hugo A1 - Fries, Andreas A1 - Windhorst, David A1 - Breuer, Lutz A1 - Dantas de Paula, Mateus A1 - Hickler, Thomas A1 - Trachte, Katja A1 - Bendix, Jörg T1 - Radiation partitioning in a cloud-rich tropical mountain rain forest of the S-Ecuadorian Andes for use in plot-based land surface modelling T2 - Dynamics of atmospheres and oceans : planetary fluid, climatic and biogeochemical systems N2 - Understanding the partitioning of downward shortwave radiation into direct and diffuse components is essential for modeling ecosystem energy fluxes. Accurate partitioning functions are critical for land surface models (LSMs) coupled with climate models, yet these functions often depend on regional cloud and aerosol conditions. While data for developing semi-empirical partitioning functions are abundant in mid-latitudes, their performance in tropical regions, particularly in the high Andes, remains poorly understood due to scarce ground-based measurements. This study analyzed a unique dataset of shortwave radiation components from a tropical mountain rainforest (MRF) in southern Ecuador, developing and testing a locally adapted partitioning function using Random Forest Regression. The model achieved high accuracy in predicting the percentage of diffuse radiation (%Dif; R²=0.95, RMSE = 5.33, MAE = 3.74) and absolute diffuse radiation (R²=0.99, RMSE = 5.30, MAE = 14). When applied to simulate upward shortwave radiation, the model outperformed commonly used partitioning functions achieving the lowest RMSE (8.62) and MAE (5.82) while matching the highest R² (0.97). These results underscore the importance of regionally adapted radiation partitioning functions for improving LSM performance, particularly in complex tropical environments. The adapted LSM will be further utilized for studies on heat fluxes and carbon sequestration. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dynatmoce.2025.101553 SN - 0377-0265 VL - 110 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Bendix, Jörg A1 - Limburger, Oliver A1 - Breuer, Lutz A1 - Dantas de Paula, Mateus A1 - Fries, Andreas A1 - Gonzalez-Jaramillo, Victor Hugo A1 - Grigusova, Paulina A1 - Hickler, Thomas A1 - Murkute, Charuta A1 - Pucha-Cofrep, Franz A1 - Trachte, Katja A1 - Windhorst, David T1 - Simulation of latent heat flux over a high altitude pasture in the tropical Andes with a coupled land surface framework T2 - The science of the total environment N2 - Latent heat flux is a central element of land-atmosphere interactions under climate change. Knowledge is particularly poor in the biodiversity hotspot of the Andes, where heat flux measurements using eddy covariance stations are scarce and land surface models (LSMs) often oversimplify the complexity of the ecosystems. The main objective of this study is to perform latent heat flux simulations for the tropical South Eastern (SE) Ecuadorian Andes using a coupled LSM framework, and to test the performance with heat flux and soil moisture data collected from a tropical high-altitude pasture. Prior to testing, we applied multi-criteria model calibration of sensitive model parameters, focusing on improving simulated soil water conditions and radiation fluxes as a prerequisite for proper heat flux simulations. The most sensitive parameters to improve soil moisture and radiation flux simulations were soil porosity, saturated hydraulic conductivity, leaf area index, soil colour and NIR (Near Infrared) leaf optical properties. The best calibrated model run showed a very good performance for half-hourly latent heat flux simulations with an R² of 0.8 and an RMSE of 34.0 W m⁻², outperforming simulations with uncalibrated and uncoupled LSM simulations in comparable areas. The slight overall overestimation in the simulated latent heat flux can be related to (i) simulation uncertainties in the canopy heat budget, (ii) an imbalance in the observed flux data and (iii) slight overestimations in the simulated soil moisture. Although our study focuses on latent heat fluxes and their relation to simulated radiation fluxes and soil moisture, model outputs of sensible heat fluxes were also discussed. The systematic overestimation of sensible heat flux in the model seems to be mainly a result of overestimated canopy temperatures. The improved simulation for latent heat flux has a high translational potential to support land use strategies in the tropical Andes under climate change. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179510 SN - 1879-1026 VL - 981 SP - 1 EP - 21 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -