A Polish hiking route sign on a spruce tree where others have been badly affected by the European spruce beetle, in Dolina Mietusia, a hiking route in the Polish Tatra National Park, on 18th September 2019, in Dolina Mietusia, near Zakopane, Malopolska, Poland. The European spruce beetle Ips typographus is one of 116 bark beetles species in Poland which is killing thousands of spruces. The insects population can grow rapidly via wind and snow etc. which eventually leaves a gap in the landscape, thereby changing the forest floors ecology.