ABSTRACT
Deadwood and wood decay (saproxylic) invertebrates are widely acknowledged as one of the twomost threatened ecological groupings of invertebrates across Europe – the other being wetland invertebrates (Koomen and van Helsdingen, 1996). This has recently been recognised by the European Union with their commissioning of the IUCN European Red List of Saproxylic Beetles (Nieto and Alexander, 2010) – the first ever IUCN Red List focused primarily on an ecological rather than taxonomic grouping of species. Despite this recognition, there is notably little widespread understanding among invertebrate specialists of the fundamental role of grazing in maintaining the habitat structures required by many of these invertebrates.
