Beaver and Biodiversity

Beaver and Biodiversity – a new project module

The German Environmental Foundation provides € 100,000 for the elaboration of new methods for quantification of the impact of the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) on the biodiversity of peat lands. Such approaches are conventionally addressed by time-consuming species assessments. The core idea of our work is to concentrate on how the beaver influences the availability of key resources essential for target species rather than focusing on species occurrences.

Beavers can alter habitats at the landscape scale. Positive impacts of beavers mainly on wetland species communities are often postulated by conservationists. However, the current return of the beaver into many peat lands is controversially discussed since the effects of this process on peat land species communities is to the greatest extent still unclear. For about ten years, beavers have populated our study area, the Wurzacher Ried, which is a peat land preserve in the southeast of Baden-Württemberg. We aim to analyse whether the returning beavers influence the availability of habitat requisites essential for diverse fauna species, which are relevant in the context of the Fauna-Flora-Habitat-Directive. Our work combines field evaluation, remote sensing techniques, and habitat and hydrologic modelling. Based on our previous research, spatially explicit calculation of areas of water retention caused by the beaver is possible for our study region. Furthermore, we are able to reconstruct the alterations of riparian habitats during the course of beaver colonisation. Such information combined with beaver population models allows the modelling of future habitat developments expected for the study area. This approach allows describing the beaver impact on relevant species without demanding and long-term exploration of the population developments of target species. We expect that our results will stimulate and facilitate new peat land conservation strategies at the landscape scale.   

The newly established research module described here is part of an overall project which consists of several sub-projects:

 


Duration:

01.04.2015 – 01.05.2016

Funding:

German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU)

Supervisor:

Dr. Thomas Kaphegyi & Prof. Dr. Werner Konold

Researcher:

Dr. Thomas Kaphegyi, Yvonne Christoffers, Frank Philipps

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