Örebro Studies in Life Science 14 I
ÖREBRO 2015 2015KR
IS
TO
FFE
R S
TIG
H
ÄLL
Ha
bit
at a
nd r
es
toc
king o
f w
hit
e-b
ac
ked w
oo
dp
ec
ke
r
kristoffer stighäll received his graduate education at the Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm Uni-versity. He worked as municipality ecologist in Norrtälje in 1994-95. Since 1995 he has worked as coordinator for the rescue project of the white-backed woodpecker at Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC). SSNC gave him the possibility of PhD-studies. He has been a doctoral student at Örebro University and has a licentiate degree in Biology. Human land use and especially forestry activities have led to drastic changes of the forest landscape, resulting in high fragmentation. Loss of oldgrowth forests, deciduous forests, dead wood and natural processes like forest fires are affecting a wide range of species, of which many today are redlisted. One critically endangered species in Sweden is the white-backed woodpecker
Dendrocopos leucotos. The species used to be widespread in most parts of
Sweden hundred years ago, but today only a few pairs remain. This thesis deals with the woodpecker and its habitats around the Baltic Sea region, Northern Europe. To be able to understand crucial circumstances for occurrence of woodpeckers in fragmented forest landscapes, a regional population of the species in Sweden were studied and compared with territories in Finland and Latvia. Breeding territory composition and fragmentation were analyzed, as well as methods of increasing food supply by artificially made dead wood. In an attempt to vitalizing the remnant Swedish population, restocking of captive bred and wild caught specimen were tested. The results shed lights on threshold levels for suitable habitats, critical levels of fragmentation, pos-sibilities to artificially increase food supply and on important features for successful captive breeding and restocking of white-backed woodpeckers.
issn 1653-3100 isbn 978-91-7529-101-7
