Sonja Knapp

5.7k total citations · 2 hit papers
43 papers, 3.5k citations indexed

About

Sonja Knapp is a scholar working on Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation and Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics. According to data from OpenAlex, Sonja Knapp has authored 43 papers receiving a total of 3.5k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 25 papers in Global and Planetary Change, 24 papers in Nature and Landscape Conservation and 18 papers in Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics. Recurrent topics in Sonja Knapp's work include Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies (24 papers), Land Use and Ecosystem Services (23 papers) and Plant and animal studies (18 papers). Sonja Knapp is often cited by papers focused on Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies (24 papers), Land Use and Ecosystem Services (23 papers) and Plant and animal studies (18 papers). Sonja Knapp collaborates with scholars based in Germany, United States and Netherlands. Sonja Knapp's co-authors include Ingolf Kühn, Stefan Klotz, Dagmar Haase, Niki Frantzeskaki, Jutta Stadler, Aletta Bonn, McKenna Davis, Nadja Kabisch, Horst Korn and Stephan Pauleit and has published in prestigious journals such as Ecology, The Science of The Total Environment and Ecology Letters.

In The Last Decade

Sonja Knapp

41 papers receiving 3.4k citations

Hit Papers

align trajectories

What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

Nature-based solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban areas: perspectives on indicators, knowledge gaps, barriers, and opportunities for action

2016 928 citations Nadja Kabisch, Niki Frantzeskaki et al. Ecology and Society profile →
Urban biodiversity: State of the science and future directions

2022 130 citations Christine C. Rega‐Brodsky, Myla F. J. Aronson et al. Urban Ecosystems profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name	h						Papers	Cites
Sonja Knapp Germany	28	1.9k	1.3k	1.0k	666	630	43	3.5k
Stephen Venn Finland	16	1.5k 0.8×	1.6k 1.2×	596 0.6×	718 1.1×	568 0.9×	34	3.0k
Sarel S. Cilliers South Africa	26	1.6k 0.8×	1.3k 1.0×	647 0.6×	273 0.4×	525 0.8×	89	2.8k
Craig R. Nitschke Australia	29	1.9k 1.0×	416 0.3×	1.0k 1.0×	380 0.6×	820 1.3×	110	2.8k
Corinna Gries United States	26	1.0k 0.5×	704 0.5×	496 0.5×	313 0.5×	664 1.1×	67	3.1k
Katalin Szlávecz United States	28	1.1k 0.6×	620 0.5×	463 0.4×	385 0.6×	1.0k 1.6×	82	3.0k
Erich Tasser Italy	45	3.7k 1.9×	904 0.7×	1.4k 1.4×	329 0.5×	1.4k 2.2×	130	5.9k
Thomas W. Gillespie United States	31	1.3k 0.7×	408 0.3×	1.0k 1.0×	505 0.8×	1.4k 2.2×	85	3.0k
Constantin M. Zohner Switzerland	26	2.3k 1.2×	261 0.2×	1.1k 1.1×	488 0.7×	1.3k 2.1×	63	4.0k
Pedro Pinho Portugal	30	926 0.5×	935 0.7×	374 0.4×	489 0.7×	332 0.5×	85	2.8k
Graciela M. Rusch Norway	27	1.4k 0.7×	386 0.3×	1.4k 1.4×	210 0.3×	906 1.4×	68	3.3k

Countries citing papers authored by Sonja Knapp

Since Specialization

Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Sonja Knapp's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Sonja Knapp with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Sonja Knapp more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Sonja Knapp

Since Specialization

Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Sonja Knapp. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Sonja Knapp. The network helps show where Sonja Knapp may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Sonja Knapp

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Sonja Knapp. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Sonja Knapp based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Sonja Knapp. Sonja Knapp is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

Sort: Min cites: Since: Top N: Style:

20 of 20 papers shown

Knapp, Sonja, et al.. (2025). The garden biodiversity index: A self-assessment tool for evaluating biodiversity in private gardens. Landscape and Urban Planning. 263. 105449–105449.

Knapp, Sonja, et al.. (2025). How does the choice of trees in favour of high carbon storage benefit faunistic biodiversity in urban areas? A systematic review. Landscape and Urban Planning. 261. 105404–105404.

Bakker, Jonathan D., Lori Biederman, Elizabeth T. Borer, et al.. (2025). Successful Alien Plant Species Exhibit Functional Dissimilarity From Natives Under Varied Climatic Conditions but Not Under Increased Nutrient Availability. Journal of Vegetation Science. 36(2). 2 indexed citations

Golivets, Marina, Sonja Knapp, Franz Essl, et al.. (2023). Future changes in key plant traits across Central Europe vary with biogeographical status, woodiness, and habitat type. The Science of The Total Environment. 907. 167954–167954. 3 indexed citations

Rega‐Brodsky, Christine C., Myla F. J. Aronson, Max R. Piana, et al.. (2022). Urban biodiversity: State of the science and future directions. Urban Ecosystems. 25(4). 1083–1096. 130 indexed citations breakdown →

Wellmann, Thilo, Erik Andersson, Sonja Knapp, et al.. (2022). Reinforcing nature-based solutions through tools providing social-ecological-technological integration. AMBIO. 52(3). 489–507. 30 indexed citations

Kühn, Ingolf, et al.. (2021). Functional diversity changes in native and alien urban flora over three centuries. Biological Invasions. 23(7). 2337–2353. 10 indexed citations

Swan, Christopher M., Bryan L. Brown, Jeannine Cavender‐Bares, et al.. (2021). A framework for understanding how biodiversity patterns unfold across multiple spatial scales in urban ecosystems. Ecosphere. 12(7). 43 indexed citations

Knapp, Sonja, et al.. (2020). Linking traits of invasive plants with ecosystem services and disservices. Ecosystem Services. 42. 101072–101072. 80 indexed citations

10.

Knapp, Sonja, Walter Durka, Ingolf Kühn, et al.. (2020). Urbanization Effects on Biodiversity Revealed by a Two-Scale Analysis of Species Functional Uniqueness vs. Redundancy. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 8. 64 indexed citations

11.

Lausch, Angela, Olaf Bastian, Stefan Klotz, et al.. (2018). Understanding and assessing vegetation health by in situ species and remote‐sensing approaches. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. 9(8). 1799–1809. 45 indexed citations

12.

Kabisch, Sigrun, Florian Koch, Erik Gawel, et al.. (2018). Urban Transformations. 34 indexed citations

13.

Schwarz, Nina, Marco Moretti, Miguel N. Bugalho, et al.. (2017). Understanding biodiversity-ecosystem service relationships in urban areas: A comprehensive literature review. Ecosystem Services. 27. 161–171. 144 indexed citations

14.

Knapp, Sonja, Marten Winter, & Stefan Klotz. (2016). Increasing species richness but decreasing phylogenetic richness and divergence over a 320‐year period of urbanization. Journal of Applied Ecology. 54(4). 1152–1160. 57 indexed citations

15.

Kabisch, Nadja, Niki Frantzeskaki, Stephan Pauleit, et al.. (2016). Nature-based solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban areas: perspectives on indicators, knowledge gaps, barriers, and opportunities for action. Ecology and Society. 21(2). 928 indexed citations breakdown →

16.

Knapp, Sonja & Rüdiger Wittig. (2012). An analysis of temporal homogenisation and differentiation in Central European village floras. Basic and Applied Ecology. 13(4). 319–327. 11 indexed citations

17.

Knapp, Sonja, Ingolf Kühn, Jan P. Bakker, et al.. (2009). How species traits and affinity to urban land use control large‐scale species frequency. Diversity and Distributions. 15(3). 533–546. 71 indexed citations

18.

Knapp, Sonja, et al.. (2009). Changes in the functional composition of a Central European urban flora over three centuries. Perspectives in Plant Ecology Evolution and Systematics. 12(3). 235–244. 129 indexed citations

19.

Knapp, Sonja, et al.. (2008). Urbanization causes shifts in species' trait state frequencies. Preslia. 80. 375–388. 87 indexed citations

20.

Knapp, Sonja, Ingolf Kühn, Oliver Schweiger, & Stefan Klotz. (2008). Challenging urban species diversity: contrasting phylogenetic patterns across plant functional groups in Germany. Ecology Letters. 11(10). 1054–1064. 220 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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