Chick food availability after forestry activities in favour of capercaillie Conservation measures to further the remaining capercaillie populations in Switzerland focus mainly on improving habitat quality of the forests. So far, programs to survey the effect of these forestry measures have been restricted to changes in forest structure and capercaillie presence on the treated areas. Potential changes in arthropod food availability, a key factor for the habitat quality for chicks in their first weeks of life, however, have not been assessed systematically in Central European habitats. We measured the biomass of arthropods in four habitat types: dense, semiopen and open stands and inner forest edges. In our study area in the Swiss Prealps, these habitat types resulted from logging activities in twelve cable-way lines between 2008 and 2011 that were carried out with the aim to improve habitat quality for capercaillie. Arthropod availability varied strongly between plots and high numbers of individuals could be observed in all four habitat types. Coleoptera accounted for more than half of the total dry weight of the catch. Summing up the three most important arthropod groups for the chick diet as reported in literature (spiders, ants and lepidoptera larvae), open stands, forest edges and semiopen stands yielded higher arthropod biomasses than the dense stands that had not been treated in the logging campaigns. In this case study, habitat improvement measures increased the arthropod food supply, and thus probably improved the conditions for capercaillie chicks in the first weeks of their development.