Prof. Anke Hildebrandt, PhD

Contact

UFZ - Department Computational Hydrosystems
Permoserstr. 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

Tel +49-341 - 6025 2238
anke.hildebrandt@ufz.de

common appointment together with

Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Institute of Geosciences

Burgweg 11 (H209), 07749 Jena

Tel +49 3641 9-48720
anke.hildebrandt@uni-jena.de

Persönliche Bild
Bild: Rudolf Wernicke

Scientific positions

11/2018

Appointment to Professor for Terrestrial Ecohydrology, common appointment between UFZ and the Institute of Geoscience, Friedrich Schiller University Jena

05/2010

Appointment to Junior Professor for Ecological Modelling at the Institute of Geoscience, Friedrich Schiller University Jena

2005-2010

Scientist at department for Computational Hydrology at Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, leader of the group Ecohydrology


Education

2001-2005

PhD degree in Hydrology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Title of thesis: "Ecohydrology of a Seasonal Cloud Forest in Dhofar"

1993-2000

Univeristy studies towards the degree Engineer (Dipl. Ing.) in Water Resources Management, Technical University Dresden

1999-2000

External diploma thesis on groundwater hydrological modelling at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich)

1998-1999

European exchange student (ERASMUS), Environmental Sciences, level Maîtrise, Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France

Research interests

I study how the terrestrial water cycle and vegetation mutually affect each other. I work together with modellers to check whether interactions between vegetation and matter cycles are captured by earth system models used for prediction and scenario analysis.Topics I am currently working on are:

  • Interrelation between ecosystem structure and vertical water flow - from the top of the canopy to the bottom of the rooting zone
  • Interpretation of soil moisture patterns and relation to root water uptake and soil water flow
  • Redistribution and confluence of precipitation in vegetation canopies and how it affects soil processes
  • Effect of vegetation structure on soil hydraulic properties and potential effects on soil water fluxes
  • Understanding where roots take up water, why, and whether this affects transpiration and soil water dynamics at the regional scale
  • Optimality of root water uptake 
Most of my work targets the plot scale, since this is the typical scale of interaction between humans and the environment. However, the scale of the models and experiments ranges from the pore and plant individual to the plot and ecosystem scale.

Publications

ORCID

google scholar

List since 2019

2024 (6)

2023 (5)

2022 (11)

2021 (3)

2020 (3)

2019 (2)

  • Barry, K.E., J van Ruijven, L. Mommer, Y. Bai, C. Beierkuhnlein, N. Buchmann, H. de Kroon, A. Ebeling, N. Eisenhauer, C. Guimaraes-Steinicke, Anke Hildebrandt, F. Isbell, A. Milcu, C. Neßhöver, P. B. Reich, C. Roscher, L. Sauheitl, M. Scherer-Lorenzen, B. Schmid, D. Tilman, S. von Felten & A. Weigelt. (2019):
    Limited evidence for spatial resource partitioning across temperate grassland biodiversity experiments.
    Ecology 101(1): e02905. 10.1002/ecy.2905 
  • Fischer, C., Leimer, S., Roscher. C., Ravenek, J., de Kroon, H., Kreutziger, Y., Baade, J., Beßler, H., Eisenhauer, N., Weigelt, A., Mommer, L., Lange, M., Gleixner, G., Wilcke, W., Schröder, B., A. Hildebrandt (2019):
    Plant species richness and functional groups have different effects on soil water content in a decade-long grassland experiment.
    Journal of Ecology
    107: 127-141, 10.1111/1365-2745.13046.