New paper in Global Ecology and Conservation

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Home » News » New paper in Global Ecology and Conservation

Another outcome from Tatsuya’s collaboration with Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology has been published in Global Ecology and Conservation: “Does forest loss and fragmentation reduce woodpecker-associated ecosystem functions?”.

Woodpeckers play a critical role in the forest ecosystem, as they not only create tree cavities, but may also contribute to tree falls and creating canopy gaps, which is essential for maintaining plant heterogeneity in forests.

This study showed that the number of fallen trees in a forest was positively related to the number of woodpeckers through the number of tree cavities they created. In addition, forest loss, not forest fragmentation, was related to decrease in woodpecker abundance, leading to negative cascading effects on the number of tree cavities and fallen trees. This indicates that conserving large broad-leaved forests could contribute to the conservation of woodpecker species and their roles in the ecosystem.

Read the paper here.

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