Station 6: Let There Be Rot

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All of the wood on the floor of the forest at this station was placed here by the Conservancy. This kind of Coarse Woody Debris (CWD) contributes to the structure and function of the forest floor. Imagine that you are a salamander, or a mouse, searching for food on the ground….Suddenly, you hear the sound of a Barred Owl (Strix varia) swooping through the trees. AHHH! RUN! Where can you hide?

You can hide under or in some CWD. If not for the CWD, you would probably be eaten. In fact, if there were no CWD here, you would probably not even be in this part of the forest in the first place. As well as shelter, CWD provides a growing medium for plants, fungi, slime molds, bacteria, insects, and other invertebrates - all of which spells f-o-o-d for other creatures in the forest.

So CWD provides three important ingredients to a healthy forest:

  1. Protection/shelter for small animals
  2. A growing medium for plants, fungi, insects, etc.
  3. Richer soil for living trees
As the wood of the CWD decomposes it enriches the soil, and the living trees are nourished by their kin - a prominent aspect of the beautiful cycles of life.
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