There was an email this morning from a woman who attended last nights showing of The Beaver Believers, asking me if we had any more of the shirts I wore in the film and could she buy one. So I guess in a way we were there, and it was a beavery fun night. Sarah sent these photos yesterday of the first night when Ben spoke but you get the idea it was pretty well attended.
Which is great, because one day I’m eventually going to retire from the beaver stage and stop throwing festivals once and for all and I would like to know that in Washington, just two states away, the annual beaver event is going strong.
In the meantime, while I’m still kicking and being kicked, I thought you would enjoy this article from the Interesting Engineers website.
The Most Fascinating Engineers of the Animal Kingdom
The art and science of designing and building structures is not just the prerogative of humans, species in the animal kingdom do it too. Humans are not the only engineers in the world.
Anyone who has looked at a beehive, a termite mound, a bird nest or a spider web would agree that there are engineer animals amongst us. Many engineering designs made by humans are inspired by the sophisticated and complex structures built by animals.
So, it is evident that humans still have a lot to learn from such species that engineer their environments. There have been some massive and fascinating structures built by animals. Environmental and architectural engineers could have a lot to learn from animals.
Some of the common animal-built structures that can be observed easily are beehives, burrows, beaver dams, spider webs, birds nests, termite mounds, ant colonies, and chimpanzee nests, for example.
Gee, did you guess right away what animal they were talking about? I did when I saw Cheryl’s great photo at the head of the article.
I found this video surprisingly informative about the mysterious effects of evolution.
I never even thought about that!
Beaver dams trap large amounts of water, creating large ponds which the beavers use for their survival. These ponds increase the amount of habitat available to beavers, and encourage the growth of plants that beavers like to eat, and help the beavers evade predators, who can’t reach their underwater homes. Dam construction even changes the amount of carbon and nitrogen that gets recycled by the water.
Ecosystem engineers like the beaver are essential for the environment because of the ways in which they can create, repair, maintain, alter, and even destroy the habitat of other species in the ecosystem. They are known to have an immense impact on the richness and heterogeneity of the landscape in a particular area.
They are essential for maintaining the stability and health of the environment where they reside. All organisms indeed have a direct or indirect impact on the ecosystem. But the engineering species or ecosystem engineers are the ones that play a crucial role in maintaining and affecting other organisms in the ecosystem.
Essential. Do you hear that? An engineer told me so it must be true. We trust engineers to decide so much of modern life – how fast a plane has to go to take off, how curved a bridge must be to stay upright, how sloped a freeway exit can be without drivers falling off – if we believe engineers in ALL these instances, shouldn’t we believe them when they say beavers are essential?
Allogenic and autogenic engineers are the two types that are found in the environment. Allogenic engineers alter the physical environment, while autogenic engineers modify the environment by modifying themselves.
These two types of engineer can transform both living things as well as non-living things around them.
As mentioned above, beavers can alter their ecosystem immensely, using the process of damming and clear-cutting. By this process, they also contribute towards changing the abundance and distribution of other organisms that reside in those areas.
Beavers are allogenic engineers. An autogenic engineer on the other hand, would be like a tree or patch of coral. As the tree provides for itself and gets stronger the community it sustains does too. This is just like a beaver pond, but they have to work hard to make it happen.
They influence other living organisms by offering them resources to survive. Beaver dams create moat-like ponds filled with still water, which is used by the beavers to develop conical lodges made from mud, rocks, and timber. The body of water that surrounds it protects them from predators.
They have an incognito entry and exit from their lodge to the pond, through tunnels that are filled with water. These dams have an ecological effect on other species too. They control several abiotic resources and create a habitat that certain other animals can use.
“Hence, if these engineer species are protected, protection is automatically lent to other species too. Engineer animals like beavers can increase the complexity of the ecosystem and create room for many other organisms to live in the same region.”
Got that? Or was it too subtle? Beavers are the captain of the ship, sailing to safer waters in these trying times. If they go down so does everyone else in the boat. Think about that the next time you wonder where to put your resources that will make the most difference.
