KNOWLEDGE BASE

Incised streams are degraded streams where the streambed is lower than it should be. They are a common environmental problem which river restoration efforts often attempt to address. This text described the shortcomings of common restoration approaches, suggesting that they often failed to embrace ecological processes. The authors described how beaver dams (or man-made beaver dam replicas) could improve river restoration efforts, citing successful examples from North America.

Being able to identify beavers is crucial for studying them. This study reported on 627 beavers with ear tags in the USA and how the tags fared over 6 years. Only 6% lost a tag; tag loss didn't depend on factors like age or sex. Overall, the author says that ear-tagging methods are reliable. Please note, this resource is not open-access.

One of the impacts of beaver dams is flooding. This has the potential to cause detrimental socio-economic impacts, for example if the flooding affects nearby agricultural land. This text compiles and analyses evidence - from as early as 1922! - on the use of non-lethal methods like flow devices to manage such conflicts in North America. The paper discussed the different technologies, advised on which tools are appropriate in which contexts, and suggested areas for future research.

This article describes a quick and cheap genetic test to distinguish between North American and Eurasian beavers. This is useful for identifying invasive species, especially in regions where they overlap. The test works on different types of samples and was tested on beavers in Scotland of unknown origin.

Scientists studied beavers feeding preferences for white water lilies in Scotland. They found that beavers selectively choose larger leaves, possibly to avoid toxins in smaller ones. They mainly graze near the shore. Overall, beavers remove a small percentage of water lily leaves with minimal impact on overall plant diversity.