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Changes and Threats to Australia’s Forests

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Forests and Insect Conservation in Australia

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Abstract

The ways in which forests are managed for production and sustainability have many influences on the resident biota, and some of the effects may not be obvious or predictable before a disturbance is imposed and changes noticed. Thus, many saproxylic beetles are found only in the old-growth areas of boreal forests of Canada. The short rotation times urged by managers for maximum yields may not favour the beetle fauna, and lead to disruptions of their roles in breakdown of coarse woody material (Spence JR, Langor DW, Hammond HEJ, Pohl GR (1997) BeeHe abundance and diversity in a boreal mixed-wood forest. In: Watt AD, Stork NE, Hunter MD (eds) Forests and insects. Chapman and Hall, London, pp 287–301) and, despite incomplete knowledge of many individual species’ responses, may prove to be a threat. However, understanding how forest management practices can be honed to minimise loss of insect richness and abundance without unduly compromising production forestry targets is still elusive for many forest types.

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  1. Department of Ecology, Environment & Evolution, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Tim R. New

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New, T.R. (2018). Changes and Threats to Australia’s Forests. In: Forests and Insect Conservation in Australia. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92222-5_3

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