Standing Deadwood: Biodiversity and Retention Time in Austria's Forests

The aim of SteToDiv is to investigate the role of standing deadwood as a habitat for the biodiversity of fungi, insects, and birds, and its retention time in Austrian forests. Particular focus is placed on temporal development and site-specific differences in retention time and the biodiversity associated with deadwood, in order to enable practitioners to optimize this ecosystem service through appropriate, scientifically sound, nature-oriented forest management. This will also allow the ecological importance of habitat trees in cleared areas as stepping stone biotopes to be determined beyond their demise, as the mortality rate of suddenly exposed trees is often very high. SteToDiV will cover chronosequences for spruce and European beech, covering the period from death to falling, as well as spatial comparisons across site gradients in Austria. Dendroecological methods will be used to determine the age and time of death of standing deadwood. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data is used to measure the volume of trees with increasing degrees of decomposition, as well as tree hollows and other structures that promote biodiversity. To determine the course of species diversity in and on deadwood, eclectors (insects), visual and genetic categorization of lichens and fungal fruiting bodies, as well as passive acoustic methods (birds, bats) are used. The project quantitatively assesses two important relationships: a) the residence time and volume of standing deadwood under different site conditions, which plays an important role in CO2 storage, for example, and b) the development of species diversity for the most important taxonomic groups that benefit from standing deadwood.