Journal ArticleDOI
Alteration of North American streams by beaver
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
Although once more prevalent than they are today, beaver-induced alterations to drainage networks are not localized or unusual and must be interpreted over broad spatial and temporal scales as beaver population dynamics shift in response to disturbance, food supply, disease, and predation.Abstract:
organic matter in the channel, create and maintain wetlands, modify nutrient cycling and decomposition dynamics, modify the structure and dynamics of the riparian zone, influence the character of water and materials transported downstream, and ultimately influence plant and animal community composition and diversity (Naiman and Melillo 1984, Naiman et al. 1986). In addition to their importance at the ecosystem level, these effects have a significant impact on the landscape and must be interpreted over broad spatial and temporal scales as beaver population dynamics shift in response to disturbance, food supply, disease, and predation. Although once more prevalent than they are today, beaver-induced alterations to drainage networks are not localized or unusual. Where beaverread more
Citations
More filters
Book ChapterDOI
Organisms as ecosystem engineers
TL;DR: The role that many organisms play in the creation, modification and maintenance of habitats does not involve direct trophic interactions between species, but they are nevertheless important and common.
Journal ArticleDOI
Landscapes and Riverscapes: The Influence of Land Use on Stream Ecosystems
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined responses to land use under different management strategies and that employs response variables that have greater diagnostic value than many of the aggregated measures in current use.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Ecology of Interfaces: Riparian Zones
Robert J. Naiman,Henri Décamps +1 more
TL;DR: Riparian zones possess an unusually diverse array of species and environmental processes as discussed by the authors, related to variable flood regimes, geographically unique channel processes, altitudinal climate shifts, and upland influences on the fluvial corridor.
Journal ArticleDOI
Positive and negative effects of organisms as physical ecosystem engineers
TL;DR: It is argued that engineering has both negative and positive effects on species richness and abundances at small scales, but the net effects are probably positive at larger scales encompassing engineered and nonengineered environments in ecological and evolutionary space and time.
Journal ArticleDOI
Challenges in the Quest for Keystones
Mary E. Power,David Tilman,James A. Estes,Bruce A. Menge,William J. Bond,L. Scott Mills,Gretchen C. Daily,Juan Carlos Castilla,Jane Lubchenco,Robert T. Paine +9 more
TL;DR: This list of scientists and lecturers from the United States and Canada who have contributed to the scientific literature over the past 25 years has been compiled.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Ecosystem Alteation of Boreal Forest Streams by Beaver (Castor Canadensis)
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of beaver activity on several major ecosystem components and processes in boreal forest drainage networks in Quebec, Canada were investigated and it was shown that beavers act as a keystone species to alter hydrology, channel geomorphology, biogeochemical pathways, and community productivity.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Potential Importance of Boundaries of Fluvial Ecosystems
TL;DR: It is concluded that studies of resource patches, their boundaries, and the nature of exchange with adjacent patches will improve the perspective of drainage basin dynamics over a range of temporal and spatial scales.
Journal ArticleDOI
Boundary dynamics at the aquatic-terrestrial interface: The influence of beaver and geomorphology
TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of large animals on the boundary dynamics of "patch bodies" is discussed. And the authors suggest that within-patch retention of particulate matter transferred by abiotic vectors across lateral boundaries is maximized by a decrease in kinetic energy; lateral patch boundaries between safe refuge and a resource used by an animal vector are most permeable when they are narrow; and the total amount of energy and materials transferred across surficial boundaries are maximised by increasing surface area.
Journal ArticleDOI
A size-distance relation in food selection by beavers'
TL;DR: The relationship between sizes of trees cut by beavers and distances from the borders of their ponds was examined at three sites in central Massachusetts, consistent with an optimal foraging model of size—distance relations in which pursuit or provisioning time depends on size of prey as well as distance.