Updated DecAID (Decayed Wood Advisor)

Release Date

July 1, 2018

Description

DecAID is a publicly-available online tool that can be used by land managers to evaluate the effects of forest conditions and proposed management activities on wildlife species that use snags, down wood, or other wood-decay elements. DecAID is a statistical summary of published research data on wildlife and forest inventory data, and of professional knowledge on fungi, insects, and pathogens. Version 3.0.5 was released July 2018.

Use

Users can incorporate this information into stand growth and harvest simulators, such as the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), to predict snag and down wood numbers or to determine what numbers would be provided under management scenarios and relate those outcomes to levels of wildlife use.

Access the tool here: https://apps.fs.usda.gov/decaid/

Key Uses

Forest Management

Related Publications

Jonathan Thompson. 2006. If a tree falls in the woods, who will measure it? DecAID decayed wood advisor.
Bruce G. Marcot, Grant Gunderson, Kim Mellen, Janet Ohmann. 2004. DecAID advisor: a tool for managing snags, down wood and wood decay in PNW forests.
Kim Mellen, Bruce G. Marcot, Janet Ohmann, Karen Waddell, Susan A. Livingston, Elizabeth A. Willhite, Bruce B. Hostetler, Catherine Ogden, Tina Dreisbach. 2004. DecAID: the decayed wood advisor for managing snags, partially dead trees, and down wood for biodiversity in the forests of Washington and Oregon.
Kim Mellen, Bruce G. Marcot, Janet Ohmann, Karen Waddell, Elizabeth A. Willhite, Bruce B. Hostetler, Susan A. Livingston, Cay Ogden. 2002. DecAID: a decaying wood advisory model for Oregon and Washington.

Last updated July 8, 2025