Informal observations of insect communities under and within CWD throughout temperate Missouri show striking differences from communities in dryer environments such as Texas and Colorado, and wetter environments such as Belize and Thailand. Initial literature searches for research concerning insect communities that can be found within fallen logs and insect community succession during log decay show that few studies have catalogued species richness of saproxylic insects, the exceptions being research within Fennoscandia and a recent ongoing study in Australia (Grove 2002a). Additionally, many papers have stated that a greater awareness of the biodiversity dependent on CWD is needed practically everywhere, especially the United States and tropical rain forests (Harmon et al. 1986, Grove 2002a). Insects which use CWD are of particular conservation concern, i.e. in Finland 151 (19%) of the saproxylic beetle species are classified as threatened (Siitonen and Saaristo 2000), and prehistoric extinction of saproxylic beetles in England correlates with reduction of mature forest (Grove 2002b).

Long term research is currently being conducted in Tasmania, concerning the ecology of log decay. That research centers around the biodiversity of saproxylic insects in decaying logs of two age classes, old growth and regrowth (Bashford, et al. 2001). Other studies in Europe have shown that 40-50% of beetles taken from mature forests are associated with dead wood (Grove 2002b) and findings imply that "dead wood may be the most important substrate for the maintenance of the diversity of insects, cryptograms, and fungi in the boreal forests" (Ehnstrom 2001). Evidence suggests that a large number of insect species are reliant on decaying logs world wide (Hammond 1990, Grove 2002a).