Johanna Asch
Johanna Asch
Biocenter, University of Würzburg
Am Hubland
I am broadly interested in all things forest ecology.
Currently, as part of the Beta-For reseach group, I want to understand how forest management shapes biodiversity - ecosystem function relationships of the forest necrobiome. Decomposition of dead organic matter, such as leaf litter, deadwood, animal dung, and carrion, is a key process in forest ecosystem functioning. Studying how conservation-targeted management approaches in production forests might affect decomposition can help us better understand their conservation potential.
June 2022 - now: PhD student at the Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, University of Würzburg, Germany
June 2021 - June 2022: Research assistant at the Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Sweden
August 2019 - June 2022: Msc program Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Sweden
Oktober 2015 - July 2019: Bsc program Biosciences (Biowissenschaften), University of Heidelberg, Germany
With a research internship at HEIA-FR (Haute école d'Ingénierie et d'Architecture), Fribourg, Switzerland
Pascual, D., Hugelius, G., Canadell, J. G., Harden, J., Jackson, R. B., Georgiou, K., Jonshagen, A., Lindström, J., Ljung, K., Register, E., Volle, C., Asch, J., Ervander, U., Fälthammar de Jong, G., Sun, J., & Ahlström, A. (2026). Higher carbon storage in primary than secondary boreal forests in Sweden. Science, 391(6791), 1256–1261.
Asch, J., Scherer-Lorenzen, M., Pierick, K., Wild, C., Rothacher, J., Müller, J., Decker, O., Cesarz, S., Daume, N., Buse, J., & Peters, M. K. (2026). Dung beetles do not profit from enhanced spatial heterogeneity in temperate production forests: A forest manipulation experiment. Journal of Applied Ecology, 63(2), e70288. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.70288
Wolf, J., Asch, J., Tian, F., Georgiou, K., & Ahlström, A. (2023). Canopy responses of Swedish primary and secondary forests to the 2018 drought. Environmental Research Letters, 18(6), 064044. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd6a8
