World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!

D-Index & Metrics

Ecology and Evolution

D-Index
74
Citations
18643
World Ranking
1130
National Ranking
29

Overview

Christian Rixen is affiliated with the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research in Switzerland. Their work primarily spans the fields of Environmental Science and Earth and Planetary Sciences, with particular focus on subfields such as Atmospheric Science, Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Global and Planetary Change, and Ecological Modeling.

The main topics of research addressed by Christian Rixen include Climate change and permafrost, Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies, Tree-ring climate responses, Species Distribution and Climate Change, Cryospheric studies and observations, Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics, and Plant and animal studies.

Christian Rixen has contributed to several publications, including recent papers such as:

  • Winters are changing: snow effects on Arctic and alpine tundra ecosystems (2022), published in Arctic Science
  • Phenological and elevational shifts of plants, animals and fungi under climate change in the European Alps (2021), published in Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
  • Experimental warming differentially affects vegetative and reproductive phenology of tundra plants (2021), published in Nature Communications
  • Global plant trait relationships extend to the climatic extremes of the tundra biome (2020), published in Nature Communications
  • Directional turnover towards larger-ranged plants over time and across habitats (2021), published in Ecology Letters

Frequent co-authors working with Christian Rixen include Sonja Wipf, Ulf Molau, Isla H. Myers-Smith, Alessandro Petraglia, and Robert D. Hollister.

Christian Rixen frequently publishes in venues such as Arctic Science, Nature Communications, Journal of Ecology, bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), and Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research).

Best Publications

  • Shrub expansion in tundra ecosystems: dynamics, impacts and research priorities

    Isla H Myers-Smith;Isla H Myers-Smith;Bruce C Forbes;Martin Wilmking;Martin Hallinger

  • Global assessment of experimental climate warming on tundra vegetation: heterogeneity over space and time.

    Sarah C. Elmendorf;Gregory H. R. Henry;Robert D. Hollister;Robert G. Bjork

  • Plot-scale evidence of tundra vegetation change and links to recent summer warming.

    Sarah C. Elmendorf;Gregory H.R. Henry;Robert D. Hollister;Robert G. Björk

  • Accelerated increase in plant species richness on mountain summits is linked to warming

    Manuel J. Steinbauer;Manuel J. Steinbauer;John-Arvid Grytnes;Gerald Jurasinski;Aino Kulonen

  • Plant functional trait change across a warming tundra biome

    Anne D. Bjorkman;Anne D. Bjorkman;Isla H. Myers-Smith;Sarah C. Elmendorf;Sarah C. Elmendorf;Sarah C. Elmendorf;Signe Normand

  • Climate sensitivity of shrub growth across the tundra biome

    Isla H. Myers-Smith;Sarah C. Elmendorf;Sarah C. Elmendorf;Pieter S. A. Beck;Martin Wilmking

  • BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene

    Maria Dornelas;Laura H. Antão;Laura H. Antão;Faye Moyes;Amanda E. Bates;Amanda E. Bates

  • A review of snow manipulation experiments in Arctic and alpine tundra ecosystems

    Sonja Wipf;Christian Rixen

  • Facilitative plant interactions and climate simultaneously drive alpine plant diversity

    Lohengrin A. Cavieres;Rob W. Brooker;Bradley J. Butterfield;Bradley J. Cook

  • Snow avalanche disturbances in forest ecosystems—State of research and implications for management

    Peter Bebi;Dominik Kulakowski;Christian Rixen

  • Early stage litter decomposition across biomes

    Ika Djukic;Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas;Inger Kappel Schmidt;Klaus Steenberg Larsen

  • How alpine plant growth is linked to snow cover and climate variability

    Tobias Jonas;Christian Rixen;Matthew Sturm;Veronika Stoeckli

  • Experiment, monitoring, and gradient methods used to infer climate change effects on plant communities yield consistent patterns

    Sarah C. Elmendorf;Sarah C. Elmendorf;Gregory H. R. Henry;Robert D. Hollister;Anna Maria Fosaa

  • Higher plant diversity enhances soil stability in disturbed alpine ecosystems

    Mandy Pohl;Dominik Alig;Christian Körner;Christian Rixen

  • High mountain areas

    Regine Hock;Golam Rasul;Carolina Adler;Bolivar Cáceres

  • Shorter snow cover duration since 1970 in the Swiss Alps due to earlier snowmelt more than to later snow onset

    Geoffrey Klein;Geoffrey Klein;Yann Vitasse;Yann Vitasse;Christian Rixen;Christoph Marty

  • Greater temperature sensitivity of plant phenology at colder sites: implications for convergence across northern latitudes

    Janet Prevéy;Mark Vellend;Nadja Rüger;Robert D. Hollister

  • Phenological and elevational shifts of plants, animals and fungi under climate change in the European Alps.

    Yann Vitasse;Sylvain Ursenbacher;Geoffrey Klein;Thierry Bohnenstengel

  • Effects of ski piste preparation on alpine vegetation

    Sonja Wipf;Christian Rixen;Markus Fischer;Bernhard Schmid

  • SoilTemp: A global database of near-surface temperature

    Jonas J. Lembrechts;Juha Aalto;Juha Aalto;Michael B. Ashcroft;Michael B. Ashcroft;Pieter De Frenne

  • Increase in the risk of exposure of forest and fruit trees to spring frosts at higher elevations in Switzerland over the last four decades

    Yann Vitasse;Yann Vitasse;Léonard Schneider;Léonard Schneider;Christian Rixen;Danilo Christen

  • Alpine cushion plants inhibit the loss of phylogenetic diversity in severe environments

    B. J. Butterfield;L. A. Cavieres;R. M. Callaway;B. J. Cook

Frequent Co-Authors

Sonja Wipf
Sonja Wipf Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
Sarah C. Elmendorf
Sarah C. Elmendorf Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
Isla H. Myers-Smith
Isla H. Myers-Smith University of Edinburgh
Anne D. Bjorkman
Anne D. Bjorkman University of Gothenburg
Frank Hagedorn
Frank Hagedorn Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
Esther Lévesque
Esther Lévesque Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
Ingibjörg S. Jónsdóttir
Ingibjörg S. Jónsdóttir University of Iceland
Robert D. Hollister
Robert D. Hollister Grand Valley State University
Ulf Molau
Ulf Molau University of Gothenburg
Steven F. Oberbauer
Steven F. Oberbauer Florida International University

If you think any of the details on this page are incorrect, let us know.

Report an issue

We appreciate your kind effort to assist us to improve this page, it would be helpful providing us with as much detail as possible in the text box below:

Related Online Degrees & Career Pathways

Students interested in Ecology and Evolution often consider a variety of online degrees to broaden their career options. For instance, a masters in history can complement scientific knowledge by providing context on human impacts and natural history.

Those seeking to work in educational outreach or scientific archives may explore a Library Science degree. When considering the cost of mlis degree us, it's important to compare tuition, program flexibility, and accreditation across institutions to find affordable, reputable options.

Allied health careers, such as Speech-Language Pathology (SLP), are another option. Programs that are both flexible and high-quality are available through asha accredited slp programs. These degrees offer science-based coursework applicable to communication, education, and healthcare.

For students with backgrounds in related sciences, transitioning into SLP can be facilitated by specialized pathways. The SLP bridge pathway for communication sciences graduates enables non-SLP majors to meet prerequisites and pursue advanced SLP degrees online.

Best Scientists Citing Christian Rixen

Trending Scientists