Of course, there are some 1600 coleoptera in the world that chew on
nearly every species of wood that exist. My stock of renewable energy
comes from olive wood and there are many insect boreholes in the wood I
burn, from at least 2 species, as they have different diameters (c. 1 mm
and a whacking great 4-5 mm). Haven't actually seen any larvae, though.
What is less known is that these beasties chew away at the wood, leaving
the indigestible parts as "beetle dust" and digesting the softer parts
in an anaerobic process (possibly in a symbiotic relationship with a
fungus), and the carbon is emitted as global-warming methane.
There are other species in the animal kingdom that destroy trees. Take
the beaver, for instance. It drags branches to make its dams and
habitation, all neatly submerged where, in time, the wood will decompose
to release its carbon as methane. Remember the bumper sticker "Save a
tree - kill a beaver" ?
This is the whole point about using trees as a carbon sink: the carbon
comes back to haunt us again after a few decades, whether the trees are
felled and/or digested by humans, fungi, beavers, beetles or any other
beastie. This is NOT a viable way of handling global warming: in fact,
it may well be counter-productive as each carbon atom in a molecule of
CO2, with a GWP of 1, may end up in a molecule of CH4, with a GWP of c
50.
Brian
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