Tree cavities as attractors: an experimental test of the effects of woodpecker legacy on local bird activity and species richness

In a coniferous forest in southern Poland, snags with artificial cavity entrances received 114% more bird visits and 48% more species than controls.

• Why it matters: Fine-scale how an individual cavity affects local bird activity, separate from surrounding habitat, is still unclear despite cavities shaping secondary cavity users and breeding assemblages.
• What they did: The team installed paired standardized debarked snags—one with a woodpecker-like artificial entrance and one without—then used camera traps to quantify bird visitation and species richness.
• The result: Cavity entrances increased visitation rates (4.5 vs 2.1) and species richness (2.0 vs 1.3), and canopy closure around snags was linked to higher visitation and richness.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.