Completed PhDs since 1999
2024
Jan Clavel - The potential for upward range expansion of alien plant species in cold-climate mountains in a warming world. Defended on 5.02.2024.
Irene Ramirez Rojas - Underground connections: the interplay between tropical rainforest trees and soil microbial communities. Defended on 22.03.2024.
Romain Garrigues - From winter sleep to spring wake-up: elucidating how temperature and daylength affect dormancy and budburst in temperate deciduous trees. Defended on 27.05.2024.
Simon Reynaert - More persistent rainfall regimes: consequences and solutions for natural and managed grassland systems. Defended on 19.06.2024.
2023
Lingjuan Li - Untangling microbial community assembly in rainforest and grassland soils under increasing precipitation persistence. Defended on 5.09.2023.
2022
Eduardo Fuentes Lillo - Actual and potential distribution of non-native plants in the Central-Southern Andes of Chile: The role of anthropization at multiple spatial scales. Defended on 29.04.2022.
Bertold Mariën - On the autumn phenology of Fagus sylvatica, Quercus robur, Betula pendula and Populus tremula: timing leaf senescence and fine -root growth. Defended on 2.06.2022.
Cristina Ariza Carricondo - Leaching of Dissolved Organic Carbon from a Scots pine forest under future rainfall regimes. Defended on 23.09.2022.
2021
Inge Dox - Autumn dynamics of leaf phenology and xylem formation in deciduous forest trees of Europe. Defended on 2.09.2021.
Lore Verryckt - Photosynthesis and the role of foliar nutrients in the lowland tropical rainforests of French Guiana. Defended on 7.09.2021.
Kevin Van Sundert - Elucidating the role of nutrient availability in terrestrial carbon cycling. Defended on 1.10.2021.
Miro Demol - Improved estimates of forest aboveground biomass with terrestrial laser scanning. Defended on 7.10.2021
Niel Verbrigghe - The influence of long-term soil warming and increased nitrogen availability on carbon dynamics of subarctic grasslands. Defended on 23.11.2021.
Charly Géron - Patterns of plant species invasions along urban-to-rural-gradients. Defended on 21.12.2021.
2020
Chao Fang - Effects of warming and nitrogen addition on soil respiration, microbial properties and plant production distribution in grassland ecosystems. Defended on 28.05.2020.
Leandro Van Langenhove - Towards a better understanding of nutrient cycling in the lowland tropical rainforests of French Guiana. Defended on 09.09.2020.
Dajana Radujkovic - Unravelling the role of soil properties as predictors of local- and global-scale grassland productivity and soil microbial community composition patterns. Defended on 25.11.2020.
1999 - 2019
2019
Arne Ven - Plant carbon allocation under different nutrient availabilities and the role of mycorrhizal fungi therein. Defended on 06.12.2019.
2018
Yongjie Liu - Effects of three-dimensional soil heterogeneity on the structure and functioning of plant communities in experimental mesocosms. Defended on 31.08.2018.
Jonas Lembrechts - Plants on the move: the effect of microclimate and anthropogenic disturbances on plant species distributions in mountains. Defended on 27.04.2018.
Julie Berckmans - Modelling land-atmosphere interactions: Impact of near future land use and climate change over Western Europe. Defended on 22.03.2018.
2017
Helena Van De Velde - Influence of interspecific plant interactions on the stress response of grassland species in a future climate. Defended on 19.04.2017.
Stefan Vanbeveren - Physiology and productivity of short-rotation coppice: genotypic differences and impacts of harvesting. Defended on 30.06.2017.
Evelyne Elst - Plants in a changing world: biological invasion and the role of biodiversity and species traits during climate extremes. Defended on 18.12.2017.
Joanna Horemans - Tackling challenges in process-based forest modelling: from concept to uncertainty. Defended on 19.12.2017.
2016
Toon De Groote - Model-based optimisation of the trade-offs between biomass production, CO2 balance and water consumption in short rotation coppice forestry. Defended on 30.09.2016.
Niki Leblans - Natural gradients in temperature and nitrogen: Iceland represents a unique environment to clarify long-term global change effects in carbon dynamics. Defended on 14.11.2016 in Iceland.
2015
Josefina Luisa De Paepe - Soil productivity of the pampas related to wheat. (Productividad de los suelos pampeanos para el cultivo de trigo). Defended on 19.03.2015.
Jan Quets - A spatiotemporal analysis of desert ecosystems with phytogenic mounds (nebkhas) . Defended on 15.09.2015
Marta Camino Serrano - Factors controlling dissolved organic carbon in soils: a database analysis and a model development (pdf-file of thesis). Defended on 09.10.2015.
2014
Gonzalo Berhongaray - Inventory of belowground carbon pools and fluxes in a short rotation woody crop. Defended on 27.06.2014.
Jinbao Liao - The importance of spatial heterogeneity for plant species persistence and diversity: a modelling study. Defended on 30.06.2014.
Gaurav Zinta - Using Arabidopsis thaliana to understand plant responses to climate extremes: from genes to organism. Defended on 11.12.2014.
2013
Maarten De Bock - The Impact of tropospheric ozone on Brassica species. Defended on 28.02.2013.
Freja Dreesen - Effects of experimentally simulated climate extremes on plant communities. Defended on 18.03.2013.
Ouafik El Kasmioui - Short rotation woody crops for bioenergy: a financial, energetic and environmental perspective. Defended on 17.09.2013.
Manu Büscher - Climate change effects on soil-related ecosystem properties and processes in grasslands and wetlands. Defended on 23.09.2013.
Melanie Verlinden - Carbon balance and productivity of a bio-energy culture with fast growing poplars in Flanders. Defended on 19.12.2013.
Laura Broeckx - Development of leaf area and above-ground biomass of different Populus genotypes in a bio-energy plantation. Defended on 19.12.2013.
2012
Kim Naudts - Does the response of grasslands to stress change under climate change conditions? Defended on 28.02.2012.
Wouter Dieleman - Global change effects on soil C and soil C cycling. Defended on 25.05.2012.
Yongshuo Fu - Climate warming effects on leaf phenology on decidous trees - a combination of manipulation experiments and model analyses. Defended on 03.07.2012.
Marilyn Roland - The role of carbonate geochemistry and non-diffusive gas exchange in the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems. Defended on 30.11.2012.
2011
Raphaël Bequet - Environmental determinants of the temporal and spatial variability of leaf area index in Fagus sylvatica L., Quercus robur L., and Pinus sylvestris L. Defended on 29.04.2011.
Bert Gielen - Analysis of the long-term carbon and water balance of a temperate Scots pine forest. Defended on 10.06.2011.
Maya Verlinden - Effects of experimental climate warming on alien vs. native plant species. Defended on 06.07.2011.
Joke Van Den Berge - Changes in the stress sensitivity of plants and ecosystems in a future climate. Defended on 20.10.2011.
2010
Sara Vicca - Climate change effects on greenhouse gas emissions from wetland soils and on carbon cycling in grasslands ecosystems. Defended on 19.05.2010.
Maarten Op De Beeck - Predictive stomatal conductance models: comparison of performance and applications. Defended on 20.05.2010.
2009
Sophie Dillen - Genetic variation in growth and its determinants in two poplar families grown at two sites. Defended on 24.04.2009.
Johan Neirynck - Exchange of atmospheric nitrogen above a Scots pine forest – implications for nitrogen cycling. Defended on 18.06.2009.
Koen Hufkens - Mathematical approaches of landscape ecological studies related to scale dependent spatial patterns. Defended on 11.09.2009.
Filip Colson - Quantifying the spatial pattern and ecology of land use in the Amazon Basin. Defended on 15.09.2009.
2008
Evi Rossi - Elucidating invasive success and impact of alien plants by combining plant traits and ecosystem properties. Defended on 24.06.2008.
2007
Hans Verbeeck - The carbon and water balances of two temperate forest ecosystems: a process based modeling approach. Defended on 15.05.2007.
Catherine Lemmens - Responses of individual grassland species to climate warming and species richness: ecophysiological processes, development and biomass production. Defended on 29.05.2007.
Hans De Boeck - Community-scale effects of climate warming on experimental grasslands of different species richness. Defended on 29.05.2007.
Najwa Al Afas - Comparative study of ecophysiological production of different hybrid poplars in a short rotation coppice culture. Defended on 25.06.2007.
2006
Fleur Marchand - Climate warming in arctic plant communities: Effects of mean temperature increase and extreme events. Defended on 18.01.2006.
Marion Liberloo - Study of the effects of elevated atmospheric CO2- concentrations and nitrogen fertilization on ecosystem processes in a fast growing short rotation coppice of poplars. Defended on 13.12.2006.
2005
Ann Milbau - Creation, colonization and invasion of grassland gaps. Defended on 21.09.2005.
2004
Ilse Laureysens - Clonal variation in productivity, population dynamics and phytoextraction potential of poplar short rotation coppice culture. Defended on 5.07.2004.
Jorge Curiel-Yuste - The importance of soil respiration in the carbon cycle of two contrasting forest types. Defended on 8.07.2004.
2003
Liesbeth Van Peer - The effect of species richness on the sensitivity of plant communities to climatic extremes. Defended on 14.03.2003.
Birgit Gielen - Effects of elevated atmospheric CO2-concentrations on a fast-growing poplar ecosystem: process and structure. Defended on 09.05.2003.
Magdy El-Bana - Environmental and biological effects on vegetation composition and plant diversity of threatened Mediterranean coastal desert of Sinai Peninsula. Defended on 09.07.2003.
2000
David Salvador-Van Eysenrode - Gaps, diversity, and canopy dynamics in a terra firme rainforest in Amazonian Ecuador. Defended on 02.03.2000.
Jan Bogaert - Quantifying habitat fragmentation as a spatial process in a patch-corridor-matrix landscape model. Defended in 2000.
Katrien Bortier - Tree physiological research in view of ozone damage. Defended on 28.06.2000.
M. Ewa Jach - Response of young Scots pine trees (Pinus sylvestris L.) to increased carbon dioxide concentration. Defended on 28.06.2000.
1999
Ivan Janssens - Soil CO2 efflux in a mixed forest ecosystem in the Antwerp Campine region. Defended on 30.04.1999.