Summary
Beavers do more than build dams. This ecosystem engineer reshapes habitats across aquatic–terrestrial boundaries, possibly helping to restore stream health. This talk explores how beaver engineering affects biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, if these effects persist in human-modified landscapes, and what bats can tell us about how some species profit from beaver engineering.
Description
Beavers are among the most influential ecosystem engineers in freshwater landscapes. By building dams, flooding stream sections and modifying riparian habitats, they create heterogeneous ecosystems that connect aquatic and terrestrial habitats.
In this talk, Valentin Moser will present research from Switzerland on how beaver engineering affects biodiversity across aquatic–terrestrial boundaries. The talk will first give a broad overview of how different taxonomic groups respond to beaver engineering, including amphibians, fish, dragonflies, macrophytes, plankton, aquatic invertebrates, terrestrial plants, flying and terrestrial invertebrates, and bats. It will also ask whether these effects persist in more human-impacted landscapes, where beaver ecosystems are situated in urban and agricultural settings.
A second focus will be on bats as an example of a terrestrial group responding to changes created by beavers. Beaver-engineered streams can increase habitat heterogeneity, standing deadwood and arthropod abundance, thereby changing both habitat structure and food availability. These changes can affect bat species richness, activity and feeding activity, showing how the influence of beavers can extend beyond the stream channel into the surrounding landscape
The talk will place beavers in the context of nature-based restoration and rewilding, while also discussing why responses differ among species groups and landscapes.
Valentin Moser is a community ecologist based in Switzerland. His research focuses on biodiversity, ecosystem engineering and species responses across aquatic and terrestrial habitats. During his doctoral research at WSL and Eawag in Zurich, he studied how beaver-engineered habitats influence biodiversity across multiple taxonomic groups and along gradients of human land-use intensity. He is especially interested in mammals, birds and applied conservation ecology, and currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Ornithological Institute on avian influenza and Black-headed Gulls.
