Solitary standing trees are an important eco-stabilising element in the landscape. The preservation and restoration of old fruit trees serves the function of saving and conserving our native gene pool, but they also provide suitable habitats for a range of invertebrates, cavity nesters and dormice in their cavities. Wood in a more advanced stage of decomposition forms a substrate for fungi. And it’s not just standing timber that serves this function. So does lying, fallen wood. Larger logs and pieces of dead wood are left in piles when clearing a site. The larvae of ‘wood-destroying’ xylophagous insects, many species of bugs and Hymenoptera species such as the violet carpenter bee (Xylocopa violacea), our biggest bee, are developed in these decomposing logs.
We have taken these measures in the Beckovské skalice nature reserve.
