Study
The contribution of insects to global forest deadwood decomposition
Seibold, S.; Rammer, W.; Hothorn, T.; Seidl, R.; Ulyshen, M. D.; Lorz, J.; Cadotte, M. W.; Lindenmayer, D. B.; Adhikari, Y. P.; Müller, J.
Nature, 2021
Wood from local species was placed at forest sites worldwide, half of it in mesh that excluded insects while allowing fungi through, and mass loss was compared after several years.
- Studied in
- Insecta, Basidiomycota
- Sample size
- wood samples at 55 forest sites on six continentsPaired treatments with and without insect access.
Insects accounted for roughly a third of the deadwood decayed, with the largest contribution in the tropics. Globally, deadwood was estimated to release carbon on the scale of several gigatonnes a year, most of it returned to the atmosphere rather than stored.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Insects make a large and climate-dependent contribution to global deadwood decomposition and to the carbon flux from it.
How NatureHQ reads it
It puts numbers on the last stage of the tree carbon story and corrects the assumption that rot is entirely a fungal business. Beetles, termites and their relatives open the wood, carry fungal spores in with them, and do a third of the work themselves. It is also the study that shows why "carbon stored in wood" is a temporary description: this is where most of it goes, on a schedule set by climate and by which animals are present.
- Mesh exclusion changes the microclimate inside as well as excluding insects.
- A few years of exposure, extrapolated to full decay.
- The global carbon figure depends on deadwood stock estimates that are themselves uncertain.
Wrapping dead wood in mesh, on six continents
How much of the world’s dead wood is taken apart by animals rather than by fungi?
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Trees and carbon
Most of the carbon a forest captures goes back into the air. What matters is how long it stays.
Decomposition
Roughly a third of the world’s dead wood is taken apart by insects rather than by fungi alone.
Decomposition
Dead wood is one of the richest habitats a forest has, and a tidy wood is a poorer one.
Published by: Nature PortfolioPublished in a Nature Portfolio journal.
doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03740-8
This reference was checked by an editor on 2026-08-30.
A note on this reference: Resolver confirmed this record on one run and failed to find it on the next, ranking a different Seibold deadwood paper above it while OpenAlex was rate-limited. Direct DOI lookup returns the exact record: Nature, 2021, first author Seibold.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-30.