ORLANDO, Fla. – If you’ve recently had a tree cut down to the stump or have some toppled dead wood in your yard from recent hurricanes, there is a benefit to leaving it right where it’s at, according to experts from the UF/IFAS.
Before you hire someone to grind that stump, you can instead create your own wildlife habitat right in your own yard.
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Between 2001 and 2023, Florida lost 28% of its canopy cover, according to Global Forest Watch.
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Whether from disease, fires, or storms, some Floridians are incorporating that dead wood into their landscapes. This can create a refuge for birds, bugs, reptiles, and plant species.
Katy Deitz, a doctoral candidate in the UF/IFAS plant pathology department had a stump on her property after cutting down a decades-old oak tree. She initially planned to grind the stump but decided against it.
“I’m glad I didn’t, because one, it saved me money, and two, it brought a lot of diversity to my yard,” Deitz said.
Now saucer-sized fungi adorn the stump’s rim, and beneficial beetles burrow inside – her own diverse landscape.
Deitz and a handful of UF/IFAS-affiliated students, faculty, and staff members are promoting the ecological benefits of dead wood through “NeighborWood Watch”, a new campaign involving academic publications, an informational website, and surveys.
“We are trying to help people understand that there is a cycle to a tree’s life, and it does not end when the tree is still green and big,” said Jiri Hulcr, a professor of forest entomology in the School of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences. “It really ends decades after that, when all the nutrients have been returned back into the ecosystem and into our soil.”
Need proof? Twenty-five Florida bird species – including the pileated woodpecker and the white-breasted nuthatch – require dead branches or rotting cavities to nest, according to UF/UIFAS.
Here’s how various dead woods can be useful in nature:
- Logs: Logs can provide shelter to animals of every size. They also provide food resources; fungi, spiders, beetles, termites, ants, grubs, worms, snails, and slugs can be found inside rotting logs. These residents are food for salamanders, snakes, birds, mice, shrews, and bears.
- Snags: Dead trees that are left upright to decompose naturally are called snags, according to the National Wildlife Federation. Many animals, including birds, bats, squirrels, and raccoons make nests in hollow cavities and crevices in standing deadwood. Additionally, branches without leaves provide birds of prey with perches. UF/IFAS advises that you may want to try to determine what the cause of decline is, to be sure that the tree is not harboring invasive pests or contagious pathogens. If safety is a concern in leaving a tree standing, ask a tree surgeon to cut the snag to about 15 feet tall as this is still valuable to wildlife.
- Brush Piles: Piles of woody vegetation provide wildlife in your landscape with shelter from weather and predators. They can also be a food source. Decaying brush piles attract insects which in turn attract insect-eating animals. As more small insect-eating animals come to the brush pile for food and shelter, larger predators like owls, hawks, foxes, and coyotes may also come by.
Orlando Wetlands photos courtesy of Tim Barker
UF/IFAS photos courtesy of Tyler Jones, UF/IFAS