DOI: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103623
论文题名: Dam builders and their works: Beaver influences on the structure and function of river corridor hydrology, geomorphology, biogeochemistry and ecosystems
作者: Larsen A. ; Larsen J.R. ; Lane S.N.
刊名: Earth Science Reviews
ISSN: 00128252
出版年: 2021
卷: 218 语种: 英语
中文关键词: Beaver
; Biogeochemistry
; Carbon
; Disturbance
; Ecosystem
; Ecosystem engineering
; Geomorphology
; Hydrology
; Keystone species
; River restoration
; Water quality
英文关键词: biogeochemistry
; carbon
; dam
; environmental disturbance
; geomorphology
; hydrology
; river system
; rodent
; Castor canadensis
; Castor fiber
; Castoridae
; Mammalia
英文摘要: Beavers (Castor fiber, Castor canadensis) are one of the most influential mammalian ecosystem engineers, heavily modifying river corridor hydrology, geomorphology, nutrient cycling, and ecosystems. As an agent of disturbance, they achieve this first and foremost through dam construction, which impounds flow and increases the extent of open water, and from which all other landscape and ecosystem impacts follow. After a long period of local and regional eradication, beaver populations have been recovering and expanding throughout Europe and North America, as well as an introduced species in South America, prompting a need to comprehensively review the current state of knowledge on how beavers influence the structure and function of river corridors. Here, we synthesize the overall impacts on hydrology, geomorphology, biogeochemistry, and aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Our key findings are that a complex of beaver dams can increase surface and subsurface water storage, modify the reach scale partitioning of water budgets, allow site specific flood attenuation, alter low flow hydrology, increase evaporation, increase water and nutrient residence times, increase geomorphic heterogeneity, delay sediment transport, increase carbon, nutrient and sediment storage, expand the extent of anaerobic conditions and interfaces, increase the downstream export of dissolved organic carbon and ammonium, decrease the downstream export of nitrate, increase lotic to lentic habitat transitions and aquatic primary production, induce ‘reverse’ succession in riparian vegetation assemblages, and increase habitat complexity and biodiversity on reach scales. We then examine the key feedbacks and overlaps between these changes caused by beavers, where the decrease in longitudinal hydrologic connectivity create ponds and wetlands, transitions between lentic to lotic ecosystems, increase vertical hydraulic exchange gradients, and biogeochemical cycling per unit stream length, while increased lateral connectivity will determine the extent of open water area and wetland and littoral zone habitats, and induce changes in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem assemblages. However, the extent of these impacts depends firstly on the hydro-geomorphic landscape context, which determines the extent of floodplain inundation, a key driver of subsequent changes to hydrologic, geomorphic, biogeochemical, and ecosystem dynamics. Secondly, it depends on the length of time beavers can sustain disturbance at a given site, which is constrained by top down (e.g. predation) and bottom up (e.g. competition) feedbacks, and ultimately determines the pathways of river corridor landscape and ecosystem succession following beaver abandonment. This outsized influence of beavers on river corridor processes and feedbacks is also fundamentally distinct from what occurs in their absence. Current river management and restoration practices are therefore open to re-examination in order to account for the impacts of beavers, both positive and negative, such that they can potentially accommodate and enhance the ecosystem engineering services they provide. It is hoped that our synthesis and holistic framework for evaluating beaver impacts can be used in this endeavor by river scientists and managers into the future as beaver populations continue to expand in both numbers and range. © 2021 Citation statistics:
资源类型: 期刊论文
标识符: http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/166438
Appears in Collections: 气候变化与战略
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作者单位: Department of Soil Geography and Landscape, Wageningen University & Research, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, Wageningen, 6708 PB, Netherlands; The University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom; School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR), University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland
Recommended Citation:
Larsen A.,Larsen J.R.,Lane S.N.. Dam builders and their works: Beaver influences on the structure and function of river corridor hydrology, geomorphology, biogeochemistry and ecosystems[J]. Earth Science Reviews,2021-01-01,218