Coarse wood debris – a diversified habitat

The coarse wood debris is con­sti­tut­ed by dying, dead or decay­ing trees. The diver­si­ty of coarse wood debris can be found in some dead branch­es of an old tree as well as in decay­ing still upright stems or fall­en trees.

The death of a tree can have dif­fer­ent rea­sons: over­age, dis­ease or hail, storm and fire damage.

In a “too clean” pro­duc­tion for­est, this bad qual­i­ty wood is gath­ered and no coarse wood debris can be found. For­est man­age­ment of nowa­days (as in the Grünewald) the old and decay­ing wood is being left on the site. In fact the coarse wood debris pres­ence of a near-nat­ur­al for­est offers per­fect habi­tat con­di­tions to many dif­fer­ent fau­na and flo­ra species, pre­sent­ing the best basis of a nat­u­ral­ly grown diver­si­fied forest.

Green wood­peck­er	Black wood­peck­er
Bat	Long­horn beetle

If you have a clos­er look you can dis­cov­er a var­ied vital­i­ty around a dead tree: mush­rooms, plants (as moss for exam­ple), insects, birds and even mam­mals. There they can find food and the per­fect breed­ing conditions.

Fat dor­mouse

Moss

Some species like the wood­peck­er for exam­ple are using the coarse wood debris to become real mas­ter builders, cre­at­ing habi­tats for the next gen­er­a­tions. In the frame of forestry man­age­ment the coarse wood debris has to be picked up from time to time, in case the fall­en trees and stem remains may present a dan­ger for the hik­ers. Espe­cial­ly along the hik­ing and fit­ness trails, the stand­ing dead wood has to be elim­i­na­teed, in order to guar­an­tee the secu­ri­ty of the visitors.

Pine marten	Kuehneromyces muta­bilis
Stag bee­tle	Poly­pores