Due to heavily managed forests in Sweden, there has been a rapid decline of deadwood and deciduous-rich areas since the 1950s. As a result of this, 2000 forest species are now red-listed of which 700 is in heavy need of deadwood. The white-backed woodpecker Dendrocopos leucotos, an umbrella species whose food choice consists of insects living in dead and decaying wood, has become critically endangered due to the lack of food and nesting areas. Preservation actions aimed towards saving the white-backed woodpecker are not only essential for itself but for 200 other species dependent on the same environmental requirements. The purpose of this study was to determine if the restoration for deciduous trees has favoured the white-backed woodpecker in four different areas: Ängsbacka, Degersjön, Ålidberget, and Kvillträsk in Västerbotten. By placing two different kinds of insect traps (window traps, and malaise traps) to analyze the different insects in restoration areas compared with control areas, I could investigate if there had been an increase in the number of insects preferred by the white-backed woodpecker. I could also investigate if there was a higher diversity of these preferred insects. There was no sign of an increase in numbers of preferred insects nor in numbers of preferred species. A higher diversity could neither be proven, however all four forests were deciduous-rich with high amount of dead-wood and has proven to show good potential for a future increase in saproxylic insects if restoration continues.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-174913 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Huber, Ottar |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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