TY - JOUR

T1 - The saproxylic activity index

T2 - a new tool for the rapid assessment of deadwood species during forest restoration

AU - Burns, Moya L.

AU - Smith, Mike

AU - Slade, Eleanor M.

AU - Ennos, Richard A.

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Restoring deadwood habitat is vital in order to recreate fully functioning forest ecosystems. Letting this process occur naturally can take in excess of one hundred years, thus management practises typically try to accelerate this via the artificial addition of deadwood. Since the species which rely on deadwood often have poor dispersal abilities, restoring deadwood habitat rarely results in the full restoration of the saproxylic fauna. Furthermore, standard deadwood monitoring protocol only records the amount and type of substrate available and is not capable of determining whether saproxylic insects have been restored. Full species inventories are time-consuming, costly and require great expertise. We present a rapid biodiversity assessment tool which we believe is the first protocol for measuring saproxylic activity which is accessible to non-specialists. Utilising the exit bore holes which saproxylics create on deadwood can provide an indication of the density, richness and diversity of species present; we call this the Saproxylic Activity Index. We show that this index can detect differences in the activity of insects between substrates. As saproxylic insects provide important ecosystem functions, such as aiding in the decay of deadwood and recycling nutrients, a measure of their activity levels may indicate the rate of restoration of these ecosystem processes. We believe that further exploration of this method provides an exciting opportunity for the functional restoration of saproxylic fauna to become incorporated into mainstream forest management

AB - Restoring deadwood habitat is vital in order to recreate fully functioning forest ecosystems. Letting this process occur naturally can take in excess of one hundred years, thus management practises typically try to accelerate this via the artificial addition of deadwood. Since the species which rely on deadwood often have poor dispersal abilities, restoring deadwood habitat rarely results in the full restoration of the saproxylic fauna. Furthermore, standard deadwood monitoring protocol only records the amount and type of substrate available and is not capable of determining whether saproxylic insects have been restored. Full species inventories are time-consuming, costly and require great expertise. We present a rapid biodiversity assessment tool which we believe is the first protocol for measuring saproxylic activity which is accessible to non-specialists. Utilising the exit bore holes which saproxylics create on deadwood can provide an indication of the density, richness and diversity of species present; we call this the Saproxylic Activity Index. We show that this index can detect differences in the activity of insects between substrates. As saproxylic insects provide important ecosystem functions, such as aiding in the decay of deadwood and recycling nutrients, a measure of their activity levels may indicate the rate of restoration of these ecosystem processes. We believe that further exploration of this method provides an exciting opportunity for the functional restoration of saproxylic fauna to become incorporated into mainstream forest management

KW - Citizen Science

KW - Temperate Forest

KW - Beetles

KW - Bioindicators

KW - Volunteers

KW - Coleoptera

KW - Biodiversity

KW - Surveys

U2 - 10.4236/ojf.2014.42020

DO - 10.4236/ojf.2014.42020

M3 - Journal article

VL - 4

SP - 144

EP - 150

JO - Open Journal of Forestry

JF - Open Journal of Forestry

SN - 2163-0429

IS - 2

ER -