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Habitat availability in forests and clearcuts for saproxylic beetles associated with aspen

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Abstract

To maintain biodiversity in managed, boreal forest in Scandinavia, aspen trees (Populus tremula) are often retained at clearcutting. In this study, the habitat availability for beetles associated with aspen coarse woody debris (CWD) was predicted for forests and clearcuts with a model of CWD dynamics. Habitat requirements of eight beetle species (Agathidium bicolor, Cerylon ferrugineum, Cyphaea curtula, Endomychus coccineus, Homalota plana, Mycetophagus fulvicollis, Ptilinus fuscus and Xylotrechus rusticus) were obtained from their occurrence patterns in relation to characteristics of CWD objects in forest and on clearcuts in a study landscape in central Sweden. Three species were more frequent in forest and three at clearcuts. Five species increased with increasing girth of the CWD. Three were more frequent on standing CWD, and two on lying CWD. From the same study area, we also obtained field data on the recruitment of CWD (i.e., tree mortality) and amounts of different types of CWD. Annual tree mortality of aspen was higher for recent clearcuts (6.3%) compared with older clearcuts (1.1%). For all species, the habitat availability was higher on clearcuts, because enhanced tree mortality increased the amount of recently dead CWD. As a conclusion, green-tree retention of aspen is a conservation effort that is beneficial for species associated with aspen CWD.

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Abbreviations

CWD:

Coarse woody debris

NT:

Near threatened, red list category

LC:

Least concern, red list category

FSC:

Forest stewardship council

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Acknowledgments

Barbara Ekbom, Martin Schroeder, Lars-Ove Wikars and Ola Kårén provided valuable comments on the manuscript. Support for this study came from the projects ‘Conservation of Biodiversity in Managed Forests’ (grants to Stig Larsson and Kjell Danell) financed by the Faculty of Forestry at The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and ‘Predicting Extinction Risks for Threatened Wood-living Insects in Dynamic Landscapes’ (grant to Thomas Ranius) financed by The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS). Holmen Skog AB generously provided maps, aerial photographs and hosted our field study.

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  1. Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7044, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden

    Erik Sahlin & Thomas Ranius

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  1. Erik Sahlin
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  2. Thomas Ranius
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Correspondence to Erik Sahlin.

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Sahlin, E., Ranius, T. Habitat availability in forests and clearcuts for saproxylic beetles associated with aspen. Biodivers Conserv 18, 621–638 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-008-9528-8

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