The overall focus of our subproject is to measure the effects of the ESC/ESBC treatments on the diversity and abundance of
- (i) volatile organic compounds,
- (ii) saproxylic beetles, with a focus on bark and ambrosia beetles (BABs), as well as
- (iii) natural enemies and fungal symbionts of BABs.
The latter will deliver effects of the treatments on the function symbiosis, which is a measure for fitness of the target BAB species.
We will do surveys at specific times and combine them with expert efforts to identify cryptic species and with results from fungal-symbiont metabarcoding, as recommended for multitrophic studies (Seibold et al. 2018). We will support the fieldwork and sample sorting of the PhD-students by technical and student assistants.
Parts of our data, like saproxylic beetles (including BABs) and fungal symbionts, are collected in collaboration with SP9 and SP7 and all our data is shared with SPZ and other interested SPs.