Research Award 2024 Space Use of the White-Backed Woodpecker in a Heterogeneous Landscape: Implications for Forest Management.
The white-backed woodpecker, which is rare throughout Europe, inhabits semi-natural forests with a high proportion of dying and dead trees, especially deciduous and mixed deciduous forests. Its European distribution centre is currently in Eastern Europe, but the species is also found in the Balkans and with relict occurrences in the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Carpathians. In the Alps, it is widespread from the east to Liechtenstein and eastern Switzerland.
The laureate set out to find out more about the potential of managed forests as a habitat for actual primeval forest species. To this end, she intensively studied the habitat requirements and spatial utilisation of the white-backed woodpecker, a typical representative of this community. She caught a total of 60 woodpeckers, fitted them with small transmitters and tracked them over time. The mixed forests in the border region of Switzerland, Vorarlberg and Liechtenstein between 600 and 1300 metres above sea level were her study area.
Initially, Antonia Ettwein's study confirmed the dependence of the white-backed woodpecker on old forest stands with low management intensity and abundant deadwood as breeding habitat. However, she has now been able to show that white-backed woodpeckers are more flexible in their use of space outside the breeding season and are significantly less dependent on old deciduous forests. However, as they also specifically seek out deadwood and trees with large trunk diameters for foraging, these form the prerequisite for the utilisation of more intensively managed stands. Their results show that commercial forests can also make a valuable contribution to the conservation of the rare woodpecker if deadwood and habitat trees are available in the vicinity of old, little-utilised stands.
The prizewinner assumes that the White-backed Woodpecker was once widespread much further west in Switzerland (as indicated by an earlier occurrence in the Black Forest, among other places). For this reason, and because the population trend in Switzerland is currently positive, we are confident that a further westward spread can succeed. Measures in commercial forests based on the prizewinner's findings can certainly play a role in this.
In addition, the white-backed woodpecker is considered an umbrella species for many other organisms associated with old forests, e.g. endangered deadwood beetles. It is a good incentive to do even more for this endangered community, not least in commercial forests. The concept of the habitat tree should also be brought back into the consciousness of foresters and conservationists. Diligent and correctly implemented, this will achieve more than a drop in the ocean.
