The timbers of healthy, felled spruce trees await collection in Dolina Chocholowska a hiking route in the Polish Tatra mountains, on 17th September 2019, near Zakopane, Malopolska, Poland. In this region of southern Poland however, the European spruce beetle (Ips typographus) is one of 116 bark beetles species in Poland which is killing thousands of spruces. The insect's population can grow rapidly via wind and snow etc. which eventually leaves a gap in the landscape, thereby changing the forest floor's ecology.
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