The Boreal forest (or Taiga) is the largest biomes in the world and our greatest ally in the seemingly unwinnable war against carbon. It consists of hardwood and deciduous forests occurring between the 50 and 60 latitude belt across Canada, parts of North America, Scandinavia and Finland. The climate where it grows has short wet summers and long cold winters. It is always in danger of being logged out, and every time we lose a little of it the earth itself pays the price.
Guess who helps Taiga do what she needs to do?
Beavers restore dead wood in boreal forests
Dead wood has decreased dramatically in the boreal zone due to intensive forest management. Several species dependent on dead wood have suffered from this decline. Beavers dam water systems, raising floods into surrounding shore forests. The flooding kills the trees due to oxygen deprivation.
Researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, compared dead wood quantities and types in southern Finland. The shore forests of beaver sites had significantly larger quantities of dead wood compared to non-beaver sites. Beavers use wood for nutrition and as the building material for their nests and dams. This wood resource is used up by the beavers’ actions within a few years, forcing the beavers to change location. This creates several dead wood hotspots in the area, benefitting a large number of species.
Certain dead wood types have become exceptionally rare in managed forests, e.g. standing dead trees (snags) and deciduous dead wood. Beavers create a wide variety of dead wood types, but they particularly produce standing and deciduous dead wood. The dead wood-dependent species living at beaver sites may differ from those found in managed forests or fire areas.
Honestly beavers have been featured in so many Phys.org articles this year I think they need a new section entirely. Don’t you? How much more proof to we need? Wait, don’t answer that.
I’ll see if I can float the idea, but in the meantime, you should amuse yourself with the grisly native story sent to me by Dorrie Langley of the Martinez Arts Association. See if you don’t read it as a hard hitting metaphor for the devastating fur trade. It was collected and published by Russell K Greater.
Replace the word ‘eat’ with the word ‘consume’ and it works for me. Trappers definitely stink. And besides it certainly explains this!
