ABSTRACT
Wood-pasture is one of the most iconic and exciting habitats for invertebrates in Europe, supporting numerous rare and often spectacular species. Notable among these are saproxylic beetles and flies associated with very old trees and the associated tree fungi and detached deadwood. Nearly 1800 invertebrate species are dependent on decaying wood in just Britain and Ireland alone, including about 700 species of beetles and about 730 species of flies (Alexander, 2002) and that figure is likely to rise three- or four-fold in Europe considered as a whole. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many rare saproxylic invertebrates were considered prize specimens in a collection. But in more recent decades they have started to be used increasingly as a cause célèbre for one of the biggest European countryside battles – the protection and management of veteran trees and the habitats that support them such as wood-pasture (for example Alexander and Green, 2013).
