Eur J Forest Res (2008) 127:1–22 DOI 10.1007/s10342-007-0182-6 123 REVIEW Wood-decaying fungi in the forest: conservation needs and management options David Lonsdale · Marco Pautasso · Ottmar Holdenrieder Received: 4 July 2006 / Revised: 29 January 2007 / Accepted: 2 May 2007 / Published online: 17 July 2007  Springer-Verlag 2007 Abstract Wood-decaying fungi are essential for the func- tioning of forest ecosystems. They provide habitat for many other organisms and enable the regeneration of forests throughout the world. Since wood decomposition is a deci- sive process in nutrient recycling, soil formation and the carbon budget of forest ecosystems, it is receiving increas- ing attention from forest ecologists, pathologists and managers. Research has focussed on the factors driving the species- richness of wood-decomposing organisms and is moving on to analyse the eVects of this species-richness on ecosystem functioning. Coarse woody debris (CWD) and its associ- ated wood-decaying organisms have been drastically reduced in abundance and diversity by forestry and so these features often have potential as conservation indicators. Protective measures at a landscape level are needed for threatened wood-inhabiting fungi. These include restricting salvage operations in windthrow stands, actively encourag- ing the accumulation of deadwood in forests, and facilitat- ing decay in standing trees by inoculating them with fungi. Here, we aim to collect and summarize recently produced work on deadwood ecology, pointing out research gaps and perspectives. Keywords Biogeography · Carbon sequestration · Forest ecosystem management · Functional diversity · Landscape fragmentation · Macroecology · Morticulture · Nurse logs · Old-growth · Polypores Introduction Deadwoodology, the ecology of deadwood (Grove 2002), is a thriving research Weld, with wood-decaying fungi play- ing a major role in it. Wood-decaying fungi are excellent ecosystem engineers, because they directly modulate the availability of resources other than themselves for several other functional groups (Harley 1971; Jones et al. 1994; Krajick 2001; Moore et al. 2004). The fundamental ecolog- ical signiWcance of deadwood decomposition in forests has been highlighted in several reviews and conclusions for sil- viculture have been drawn repeatedly (Table 1). Essen- tially, modern forestry needs to retain appropriate levels of deadwood in managed forests, ideally in all its forms and density levels, in order to cover the full spectrum of habitat conditions (Samuelsson et al. 1994; MacNally et al. 2001; Berg et al. 2002; Vasiliauskas et al. 2004; Christensen et al. 2005) for the sake of dependent organisms and in order to achieve sustainability of timber production. Much information on the process of wood-decay in for- est ecosystems and on the organisms associated with it is currently scattered in individual papers. Here, focusing mainly on wood-decaying fungi (rather than saproxylic arthropods, molluscs, birds and other vertebrates dependent on deadwood) and on boreal and temperate forests (where most published research on this topic has been carried out), we aim to bring together recently published knowledge and to identify gaps in research dealing with this important part of biodiversity. The review is organized as follows: in the Communicated by Rainer Matyssek. D. Lonsdale 33 Kings Road, Alton, Hampshire GU34 1PX, UK M. Pautasso (&) Division of Biology, Imperial College London, Wye Campus, TN25 5AH Kent, UK e-mail: m.pautasso@ic.ac.uk O. Holdenrieder Institute of Integrative Biology, Department of Environmental Sciences, ETH, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland