KNOWLEDGE BASE

Here, researchers report on a study of 26 North American beavers in the USA to understand how the availability of plant resources affects the size of their range. They found that beavers' range sizes depended on factors like how densely plants were growing in the area and how the plants' availability changed over the course of the seasons. Beavers also adjusted their home range sizes based on habitat productivity.

Amidst growing interest in using beaver activity to restore dryland streams in North America, this paper sought to summarise what was known about beavers' impacts in this context. While beavers can certainly alter streams and create wetlands, much of the detailed evidence on these impacts related to temperate rather than dryland streams. The text identified important areas for further research and included some advice for when beaver introductions or removals are proposed in dryland streams, including the importance of holistic monitoring programmes.

This article describes the interactions of wolves with various species of prey in Alberta, Canada. They found that wolves mainly hunted deer in winter and beavers in summer. Because the beavers are often found in peatlands along with the caribou, this means that wolves come into contact with caribou more in the summer. This coincides with the fact that more caribou died in the summer. Understanding these patterns - alongside the impacts of human industrial activity - helps to better design management programmes to protect caribou.

In this article, scientists describe the state of play for beaver re-introductions to Britain. They summarise many different aspects of beavers' impacts: from history to health, genetics to biodiversity. Management options are described. Finally, the status of beaver populations and of the political debate in the different British countries are summarised. Whilst progress was being made with the Welsh Government, the lack of political support in England (aside from in the grassroots) was noted.

This article investigated sediment volume and total organic carbon content in beaver meadows on the eastern side of Rocky Mountain National Park to estimate the landscape-scale carbon storage in these meadows relative to adjacent uplands.
The article found that beaver meadows store substantial organic carbon along headwater mountain rivers. Relict beaver meadows represent ~8% of total carbon storage within the landscape, but around 23% when beavers actively maintained the meadows, reflecting cumulative effects in heterotrophic respiration and organic matter oxidation associated with historical declines in beaver populations.