Kelos as life boats for redlisted species - a potentially hidden source of biodiversity

The species richness of wood decaying fungi in boreal forests are declining and consequently a large number of species are listed as threatened or near threatened on the national red-list. The lack of dead wood is main the reason for this decline.

Mycelia may survive for a long time in dead wood, and it is possible that old dead wood still harbor threatened species or even species thought to be locally extinct.

Dead standing pine snags -Kelo-trees can remain for a very long time in the forest due to high amounts of phenols and resin produced during the life span of the tree, in some cases up to 500y.

We will sample Kelo trees of different ages for fungal DNA and then next generation sequencing to determine the species composition. Age and time since death will be determined by dendrochronology.

By this approach, we will explore whether Kelo-trees can serve as temporal life-boats and contribute to the protection of threatened wood fungi in pine forests.

We will further attempt to retrieve living mycelia from the Kelo-trees and through cultivation making them available for restoration actions (inoculation) as well as compare genetic variability with contemporary individuals of the same species.