Beaver change their environment as much as hardly any other living being. In addition, they also serve great services for biodiversity, as a study now shows. Accordingly, the biodiversity triples in areas that are dammed by beavers compared to those without beaver insights. The researchers therefore recommend that the Bibers settle as a species protection measure.
Once Beaver get started with the dam construction, nature around it can change rapidly. A small stream with a narrow bank forest through a beaver dam quickly becomes a multi-channel stream network with ponds, swamps and lots of dead wood. But what effects does that have on the other living things in the area? Does the “flood” affect them or does it even help them? Researchers around Sara Schloemer from the University of Duisburg-Essen have now determined this using natural landscapes in the Eifel. Specifically, they compared the biodiversity of three beaver areas with three sides nearby, which had not been changed by the rodents.
Beaver dams as the driver of biodiversity
The result: In the beaver areas there were almost three times as many types as in the beaver nuns. The diversity of water -living invertebrates was even 4.5 higher, as the team reports. “It is striking that there are no ways in beaver areas. On the contrary, there are over 140,” reports Schloemer. Even those species that rely on strong currents in the water cannot be distributed by the beaver – although their preferred habitat in beaver areas is rarely.
But how does the beaver succeed in this feat? “In fact, he creates additional, fascinating habitats: ponds, dams, dulled zones – without free -flowing sections disappearing completely,” explains senior author Daniel Hering. The worry, sometimes expressed by conservationists, that beavers would completely destroy free flowing, strongly flowing bacher sections in their areas is therefore unfounded.
Beaver as a free landscape builder
Beavers were originally widespread throughout Germany, but intensive hunting in the middle of the 20th century pushed the animals back to a small area on the Middle’s same. According to estimates, 300,000 beavers in the Federal Republic again live today. And if it goes to Schloemer and her team, it can be even more. Because the landscape redesign of the rodents sometimes increases biodiversity more than targeted human measures – and is even free of charge.
In addition, there are indications that changed ecosystems not only offer more types of a home, but are also more resistant to climate change. For example, they bind more carbon, serve as an important water reservoir for drought and protect from devastating floods.
Source: University of Duisburg-Essen; Specialist articles: Freshwater Biology, Doi: 10.1111/FWB.70046
