Anthropogenic disturbance has resulted in a global reduction in the abundance of mature, hollow‐bearing trees. Nest boxes have long been used to provide supplementary shelter sites in revegetated and regenerating landscapes, but limitations in their effectiveness when offsetting the loss of mature trees has led to increased interest in novel designs of artificial hollows. For example, mechanically excavating cavities into the trunk or branches of trees. However, the effectiveness of artificial hollows in attracting wildlife to visit small‐ or medium‐sized, growing trees in human‐disturbed landscapes has received little attention. In this study, we installed chainsaw hollows that were designed for small, hollow‐dependent mammals and birds into the trunks of live medium‐sized trees. We conducted a before‐after control‐impact experiment using passive camera traps to monitor changes in visitations by wildlife to (1) mature hollow‐bearing trees, (2) developing trees without hollows (i.e. control trees), and (3) developing trees with newly installed chainsaw hollows. We found that, compared to large hollow‐bearing trees and control trees, the developing trees that were selected for chainsaw hollow construction showed the greatest visitation rates by hollow‐dependent wildlife (i.e. number of visits) during the “post‐impact” surveys. Our results suggest that chainsaw hollows designed to replicate the external physical characteristics of natural tree hollows could be effective in attracting target hollow‐dependent fauna to developing trees in regenerating and revegetated landscapes. Further studies are required to compare the effectiveness of natural hollows, chainsaw hollows, and nest boxes when deployed in a range of human‐disturbed landscapes.

中文翻译：

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在中型活树上安装电锯雕刻的凹陷洞会增加依赖凹陷洞的动物的出没率

人为干扰已导致全球范围内成熟，空心轴承树木的丰度下降。长期以来，巢箱一直被用来在植被恢复和更新的景观中提供辅助庇护所，但是，在抵消成熟树木的损失时，它们的有效性受到限制，这导致人们对新型人工空心的设计越来越感兴趣。例如，将空洞机械挖掘到树木的树干或树枝中。但是，人工凹陷在吸引野生动植物参观受人为干扰的景观中的中小型生长树木方面的效果鲜为人知。在这项研究中，我们在中型活树的树干上安装了电锯空心，该空心锯专门为依赖空心的小型哺乳动物和鸟类而设计。我们使用被动相机陷阱进行了一次前后控制碰撞实验，以监测野生动物对（1）成熟的空心树木，（2）没有空心的树木（即控制树）和（3）发育的树木的造访。新安装的电锯空心。我们发现，与大型空心树和对照树相比，在“事后影响”调查中，被选择用于电锯空心结构的发育中树木显示出空洞依赖性野生动植物（即走访次数）最大。我们的结果表明，旨在复制天然树木凹陷的外部物理特征的链锯凹陷可能会有效地吸引目标凹陷依赖的动物，使其在更新和植被恢复的景观中生长。