Intensive activity causes risks

Final felling is most harmful to species whose requirements or characteristics are not always known very well. In particular, these include species living in old-growth and densely-wooded forests and species which suffer from the fragmentation of forests – fragmentation means that unbroken stretches of forest are split into smaller areas by small-scale felling. These species include at least tits, chaffinch and goldcrest, and among species nesting in cavities, woodpeckers, flying squirrel and pine marten, as well as bracket fungi, mosses and several beetles. Soil cultivation disturbs mycorrhiza fungi and several grouse species during nesting, although the latter may benefit from it at other times.

In everyday usage, mushrooms or fungi are taken to consist only of the part which is visible above ground. The larger part of these species is nevertheless located underground and is called the mycelium. The majority of the more common edible mushrooms live symbiotically with trees – in other words, they provide the finer roots for the tree, in exchange for which the tree gives them important nutrients. If the trees die, the mushrooms are not able to form the so-called fruiting body above ground. Final felling also alters the microclimate above the ground, which is detrimental to most edible mushrooms.

However, the mycelium does not disappear from the soil. After about twenty years, the mushrooms dependent on tree roots will begin to grow more abundantly, as the new generation of trees is growing up, and the scarcity of these mushrooms has not been found to affect the growth of trees. The mushroom crop will, of course, be smaller in the meantime. Some species, such as the edible morel, will produce more fruiting bodies if the soil is disturbed.

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