Exploring the effectiveness of using beaver as an aquatic ecosystem restoration tool

探索使用海狸作为水生生态系统恢复工具的有效性

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-05873
• 负责人: Westbrook, Cherie
• 金额: $ 2.33万
• 依托单位: University of Saskatchewan
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=711444
• 关键词: Exploring; effectiveness; using; beaver; aquatic

Beavers are known ecosystem engineers due to their ability to create, destroy and modify aquatic habitats. The beaver meadow formation theory is a conceptual framework that explains and predicts how beavers influence the physical processes that form stream valleys including the riparian zone. The meadow theory holds considerable promise in informing aquatic ecosystem restoration strategy owing to the theory's holistic description of ecosystem impacts of beaver activities and its power in predicting possible futures (successional pathways) post-beaver. Yet, key questions on how beaver plumb and shape aquatic ecosystems need answering in order to put beaver meadow formation theory to use in practice. What is the range of hydrologic and geomorphic functions that beavers mediate in aquatic environments? And, where can and cannot we use beavers as a viable restoration option? I propose to address these questions through studying how beaver shape and plumb aquatic ecosystems across the three sets of occupation histories: native, exotic, reintroduced. In their native habitat, field observations and experiments will be used to evaluate how and where beaver offer enhanced hydrologic resiliency in a region prone to floods and droughts, the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies. In their exotic habitat (fens in southern Patagonia), restoration experiments will be used to evaluate the scope and permanence of changes to hydrological processes and soil hydraulic properties. In their reintroduced habitat, we will determine whether beaver have triggered mineral sediment accretion processes in their occupied habitats and initiated the formation of beaver meadows. We will focus that research on streams in Scotland to which beaver were recently reintroduced after a 400 year absence. In all, the proposed research should yield new insights into the scope and permanence of the changes effected by their engineering capabilities. The insights gained through the research will help advance understanding of how to best work with organisms to best protect and restore aquatic ecosystem functions in degraded habitats. We expect the research will also provide concrete advice to environmental managers wanting to use beaver meadow formation theory to guide aquatic ecosystem restoration efforts. The proposed research involves extensive training of highly qualified personnel in the form of undergraduates through postdoctoral fellows. The planned training program will ready trainees to fill the demand for technical experts, innovators, leaders and influential researchers in Canada and beyond.

海狸因其创造、破坏和改变水生栖息地的能力而被称为生态系统工程师。海狸草甸形成理论是一个概念框架，它解释和预测海狸如何影响形成河谷（包括河岸带）的物理过程。由于该理论对海狸活动的生态系统影响的整体描述及其在预测海狸之后可能的未来（连续路径）方面的能力，草甸理论在为水生生态系统恢复策略提供信息方面具有相当大的前景。然而，为了将海狸草甸形成理论应用于实践，需要回答有关海狸如何探索和塑造水生生态系统的关键问题。海狸在水生环境中调节的水文和地貌功能的范围是什么？而且，我们在哪里可以或不能使用海狸作为可行的恢复选项？ 我建议通过研究海狸如何在三组占领历史中塑造和探索水生生态系统来解决这些问题：本地的、外来的、重新引入的。在它们的原生栖息地，实地观察和实验将用于评估海狸如何以及在何处在容易发生洪水和干旱的加拿大落基山脉东坡地区提供增强的水文弹性。在它们的奇异栖息地（巴塔哥尼亚南部的沼泽）中，恢复实验将用于评估水文过程和土壤水力特性变化的范围和持久性。在它们重新引入的栖息地中，我们将确定海狸是否在其占据的栖息地中引发了矿物质沉积物堆积过程并引发了海狸草甸的形成。我们将把研究重点放在苏格兰的溪流上，海狸在消失 400 年后最近又被重新引入。总而言之，拟议的研究应该对工程能力所影响的变化的范围和持久性产生新的见解。通过研究获得的见解将有助于加深对如何最好地与生物体合作以最好地保护和恢复退化栖息地的水生生态系统功能的理解。我们预计这项研究还将为希望利用海狸草甸形成理论指导水生生态系统恢复工作的环境管理者提供具体建议。拟议的研究涉及对本科生到博士后研究员等高素质人才的广泛培训。计划中的培训计划将使学员做好准备，以满足加拿大及其他地区对技术专家、创新者、领导者和有影响力的研究人员的需求。