Recordings made of Ips typographus with JzF contact microphones.
The European Spruce Bark Beetle, Ips typographus, is the declared number one enemy of European commercial forestry. The little beetle drills holes through the bark to enter spruce trees, carrying wood-rotting fungi with it. When eating birthing galleries inside the wooden tissues, they leave fungal spores that then clog the xylem vessels, stopping the transport of water and resin, which ultimately causes the tree to die. Bark beetles are always present in forests; nevertheless, their populations can exceed balanced levels during stress periods in forest ecosystems — especially in spruce monoculture forests, which make up most economically exploited forest plantations in Central and Northern Europe. Instead of reflecting on our entanglement with the forests’ past and current development and the exploitative impacts we have on them, the bark beetle is being blamed for the current forest dieback in Europe.
Ips typographus’ common name in German is Buchdrucker (book printer), Letterzetter in Dutch, as they leave distinctive patterns underneath the bark — what stories do they leave behind?
Nele Moeller 