Southern Research Station

Title: Saproxylic beetles in a Swedish boreal forest landscape managed according to 'new forestry'

Author: Larsson, Stig; Ekbom, Barbara; Schroeder, L. Martin; McGeoch, Melodie A.

Date: 2006

Source: Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-93. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. pp. 75-82

Description: A major threat to biodiversity in Swedish forests is the decline of Coarse Woody Debris (CWD), which is an essential resource for many organisms and plays an essential role for the structure and function of boreal forests. Removal of CWD in commercial forestry has depleted important resources for many rare wood-living (saproxylic) beetles. Replenishment of CWD has been a prominent goal of revised forest management practices (new forestry), through practices such as retention of living trees on clear-cuts, creation of standing dead wood such as snags, and abstinence from removal of wind-felled trees. In an ongoing project in central Sweden the dynamics of CWD as well as beetle species richness and composition are being studied in a landscape where the new forestry has been applied. Our data show that the new management practices have contributed a substantial amount of CWD; new-forestry final cuttings, for example, contained 18 percent of spruce CWD in the landscape. We found a total of 184 saproxylic beetle species in the study landscape. Of these, 16 species are currently included in the Swedish Red List. The highest number (11) of these rare species were found in unmanaged stands, but there were also many (9) species found on new-forestry clear-cuts. We tentatively conclude that the new management practices have improved living conditions for some species of saproxylic beetles, manifested as recruitment of rare species from CWD retained under the new-forestry silviculture.

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Citation

Larsson, Stig; Ekbom, Barbara; Schroeder, L. Martin; McGeoch, Melodie A.  2006.  Saproxylic beetles in a Swedish boreal forest landscape managed according to 'new forestry'.   Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-93. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. pp. 75-82