I’m getting closer on my pollination activity for next year’s beaver festival. The point is sparked by the great study done last year showing that beaver dams increase pollinators in the area, which was smart to undertake because one of the hardest folk to persuade about beavers are farmers. And nothing is more attractive to them than the idea of getting more pollinators. Which mean more crops which mean more dollars in their pockets.

Beaver wetlands create a buzz and a flutter for pollinators

Patrick Cook, Alan Law, Zarah Pattison, Nigel J. Willby

Beavers are second only to humans in their capacity to transform landscapes. Biodiversity responses to their habitat engineering activities are well studied but rarely so ‘beyond the pond’ despite habitat alteration commonly extending into more terrestrial environments. Potentially profound spillover effects on, for example, pollinator communities, may therefore be overlooked.
In this study, we compared plant communities, pollinator communities and plant–pollinator networks around beaver wetlands and human-created ponds. Specifically, we tested if these wetland types differ in terms of (1) plant species richness and community composition, (2) pollinator species richness and abundance, and the floral characteristics (number of species in flower and maximum flower coverage) to which pollinators respond and (3) specialisation of their plant-pollinator networks.
Plant composition but not species richness differed between the two wetland types. Beaver wetlands supported more ruderal and competitor indicator species, whereas human-created ponds had more stress tolerators.
Hoverfly richness (+29%), hoverfly abundance (+119%) and butterfly abundance (+45%) were higher in beaver wetlands, the former two being positively associated with number of species in flower and maximum flower coverage, and the latter with open habitats. Butterfly richness and both the richness and abundance of bees and moths showed no difference between wetland types.
Hoverflies were the dominant flower visitor in beaver wetlands and bees in human-created ponds, but network level specialisation did not differ significantly between the two wetland types.
Synthesis and applications. Our results show that beaver wetlands boost hoverfly richness/abundance and butterfly abundance and diversify foraging resources for pollinators while comparing favourably with human-created ponds for other pollinators. Support for beaver wetlands, in tandem with riparian buffers and pond margins, should therefore be advocated in agri-environment schemes to recognise the pollinator se.

The ideas is that kids would be invited to learn how beavers create a “pollinator party” and get a sticker sheet from me with 6 pollinators on it. Then they go the exhibits to learn which pollinator does what so they to put them in the correct match the with the plant on a card.

When they’re all finished they can :join the pollinator party!