Beaver (Castor canadensis) mitigate the effects of climate on the area of open water in boreal wetlands in western Canada

Hood, Glynnis A.; Bayley, Suzanne E.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2007.12.003

Cited by 165 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The impoundment, or beaver pond, alters the rate at which water, solutes, and sediment move downstream, thereby affecting stream water quality, including temperature and suspended sediment and particulate organic matter concentrations (White, 1990;Gurnell, 1998;Rosell et al, 2005). In addition to hydrologic and fluvial geomorphic effects from dams (Hood and Bayley, 2008;Persico and Meyer, 2009), beaver physically alter habitats by cutting down trees, building lodges, dredging pond material, creating woody debris, 326 D. C. ANDERSEN AND P. B. SHAFROTH early 1800s (Weber, 1971), but permanent populations may have been concentrated in high-elevation, relatively mesic headwater areas. Beaver may have been absent from most reaches of small to moderate-sized desert streams because these streams were susceptible to loss of surface flow during dry seasons or years, and they were subject to large floods, which occurred in many cases often enough to prevent the formation of extensive stands of woody riparian vegetation (Davies et al, 1994).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beaver dams, hydrological thresholds, and controlled floods as a management tool in a desert riverine ecosystem, Bill Williams River, Arizona

Andersen

Shafroth

2010

Ecohydrology

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Beaver convert lotic stream habitat to lentic through dam construction, and the process is reversed when a flood or other event causes dam failure. We investigated both processes on a regulated Sonoran Desert stream, using the criterion that average current velocity is <0Ð2 m s 1 in a lentic reach. We estimated temporal change in the lotic : lentic stream length ratio by relating beaver pond length (determined by the upstream lentic-lotic boundary position) to dam size, and coupling that to the dam-size frequency distribution and repeated censuses of dams along the 58-km river. The ratio fell from 19 : 1 when no beaver dams were present to <3 : 1 after 7 years of flows favourable for beaver. We investigated the dam failure-flood intensity relationship in three independent trials (experimental floods) featuring peak discharge ranging from 37 to 65 m 3 s 1 . Major damage (breach ½3-m wide) occurred at ½20% of monitored dams (n D 7-86) and a similar or higher proportion was moderately damaged. We detected neither a relationship between dam size and damage level nor a flood discharge threshold for initiating major damage. Dam constituent materials appeared to control the probability of major damage at low (attenuated) flood magnitude. We conclude that environmental flows prescribed to sustain desert riparian forest will also reduce beaver-created lentic habitat in a non-linear manner determined by both beaver dam and flood attributes. Consideration of both desirable and undesirable consequences of ecological engineering by beaver is important when optimizing environmental flows to meet ecological and socioeconomic goals. Published in

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beaver dams, hydrological thresholds, and controlled floods as a management tool in a desert riverine ecosystem, Bill Williams River, Arizona

Andersen

Shafroth

2010

Ecohydrology

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“…They can extensively modify riparian and river systems to create habitats more suitable for habitation (McKinstry et al ., 2001; Nyssen et al ., 2011; Nummi and Holopainen, 2014). The most significant geomorphic impact of beavers results from their dam building ability and the consequent impoundment of large volumes of water and potentially associated sediment and nutrient accumulation in ponds (Naiman et al ., 1988; Butler and Malanson, 2005; Hood and Bayley, 2008). Dam and pond features can alter hydrological regimes, both locally and downstream (Polvi and Wohl, 2012; Burchsted and Daniels, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sediment and nutrient storage in a beaver engineered wetland

Puttock

Graham

Carless

et al. 2018

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Beavers, primarily through the building of dams, can deliver significant geomorphic modifications and result in changes to nutrient and sediment fluxes. Research is required to understand the implications and possible benefits of widespread beaver reintroduction across Europe. This study surveyed sediment depth, extent and carbon/nitrogen content in a sequence of beaver pond and dam structures in South West England, where a pair of Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) were introduced to a controlled 1.8 ha site in 2011. Results showed that the 13 beaver ponds subsequently created hold a total of 101.53 ± 16.24 t of sediment, equating to a normalised average of 71.40 ± 39.65 kg m2. The ponds also hold 15.90 ± 2.50 t of carbon and 0.91 ± 0.15 t of nitrogen within the accumulated pond sediment.The size of beaver pond appeared to be the main control over sediment storage, with larger ponds holding a greater mass of sediment per unit area. Furthermore, position within the site appeared to play a role with the upper‐middle ponds, nearest to the intensively‐farmed headwaters of the catchment, holding a greater amount of sediment. Carbon and nitrogen concentrations in ponds showed no clear trends, but were significantly higher than in stream bed sediment upstream of the site.We estimate that >70% of sediment in the ponds is sourced from the intensively managed grassland catchment upstream, with the remainder from in situ redistribution by beaver activity. While further research is required into the long‐term storage and nutrient cycling within beaver ponds, results indicate that beaver ponds may help to mitigate the negative off‐site impacts of accelerated soil erosion and diffuse pollution from agriculturally dominated landscapes such as the intensively managed grassland in this study. © 2018 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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“…Despite their extirpation from much of the CLM during the 1800s (Hood and Bayley 2008), beaver populations have since recovered and almost all wetlands in the park have current or historical use by beaver (Bromley and Hood 2013). In 2008, beaver density in MLPP was four active lodges per km 2 (Bromley and Hood 2013), but numbers have fluctuated since the 2009 drought.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 96%

“…By creating and maintaining wetlands, beavers can impact temporal and spatial dynamics of pond hydrology (Westbrook et al 2006;Hood and Bayley 2008) and composition and extent of riparian vegetation communities (Hood and Bayley 2009). In Ontario, Canada, France (1997) determined that addition of coarse woody debris and sediment by beavers increased species richness and abundance of some taxa of benthic invertebrates adjacent to beaver lodges.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beaver-Created Habitat Heterogeneity Influences Aquatic Invertebrate Assemblages in Boreal Canada

Hood

Larson

2013

Wetlands

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Habitat heterogeneity and wetland area play important roles in aquatic biodiversity; however, other factors are equally important in the composition and distribution of ecological communities. Over a 3-year period, including a year of drought, we demonstrate how beavers physically altered isolated shallow-water wetlands in Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, Canada, which then influenced aquatic invertebrates diversity and abundance of functional feeding groups and taxa. Digging channels by beavers extended aquatic habitats over 200 m into the upland zone and created unique aquatic habitats, which became hot-spots for predaceous aquatic invertebrates. Some taxa (e.g., Gerridae and Gyrinidae) were found exclusively in beaver ponds, while Culicidae were primarily in wetlands without beavers. Amphipoda were strongly associated with beaver ponds in drought and postdrought years. During extreme drought in 2009, species richness, diversity and abundance declined dramatically, but recovered quickly in 2010. Although species richness was associated with wetland area, increased niche availability through active maintenance of wetlands by beavers played an important role in aquatic invertebrate diversity and distribution. Understanding the role of common, but seldom surveyed within-wetland habitats in boreal wetlands expands our ability to understand aquatic biodiversity, the importance of habitat heterogeneity and the role of other taxa in species assemblages.

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Beaver (Castor canadensis) mitigate the effects of climate on the area of open water in boreal wetlands in western Canada

Cited by 165 publications

References 39 publications

Beaver dams, hydrological thresholds, and controlled floods as a management tool in a desert riverine ecosystem, Bill Williams River, Arizona

Beaver dams, hydrological thresholds, and controlled floods as a management tool in a desert riverine ecosystem, Bill Williams River, Arizona

Sediment and nutrient storage in a beaver engineered wetland

Beaver-Created Habitat Heterogeneity Influences Aquatic Invertebrate Assemblages in Boreal Canada

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