Beaver: The North American freshwater climate action plan

Jordan, Chris E.; Fairfax, Emily

doi:10.1002/wat2.1592

Cited by 25 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 123 publications

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“…Examining thermal sensitivity regimes improves understanding of factors contributing to stream temperatures and may enable managers to target mitigation and adaptation activities to work best with local conditions, thus maximizing benefits given limited resources. For example, given the importance of subsurface geology within the Wenatchee and Snoqualmie basins, targeted actions to restore floodplain functions that recharge aquifers through actions such as placing engineered logjams or reintroducing beavers could be prioritized (Abbe and Brooks 2013, Pollock et al 2014, Jordan and Fairfax 2022. Additionally, identification of particularly insensitive portions of the river could help to better constrain areas where coldwater patches exist that may be used as refuges for coldwater fish (Snyder et al 2020).…”

Section: Implications For Management and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical stream thermal sensitivities cluster on the landscape according to geology and climate

McGill¹,

Steel²,

Fullerton³

2023

Preprint

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Abstract. Climate change is modifying river temperature regimes across the world. To apply management interventions in an effective and efficient fashion, it is critical to both understand the underlying processes causing stream warming and identify the streams most and least sensitive to environmental change. Empirical stream thermal sensitivity, defined as the change in water temperature with a single degree change in air temperature, is a useful tool to characterize historical stream temperature conditions and to predict how streams might respond to future climate warming. We measured air and stream temperature across the Snoqualmie and Wenatchee basins, Washington during the years 2014–2021. We used ordinary least squares regression to calculate seasonal summary metrics of thermal sensitivity and time-varying coefficient models to derive continuous estimates of thermal sensitivity for each site. We then applied classification approaches to determine unique thermal sensitivity regimes and, further, to establish a link between environmental covariates and thermal sensitivity regime. We found a diversity of thermal sensitivity responses across our basins that differed in both timing and magnitude of sensitivity. We also found that covariates describing underlying geology and snowmelt were the most important in differentiating clusters. Our findings can be used to inform strategies for river basin restoration and conservation in the context of climate change, such as identifying climate insensitive areas of the basin that should be preserved and protected.

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Section: Implications For Management and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical stream thermal sensitivities cluster on the landscape according to geology and climate

McGill¹,

Steel²,

Fullerton³

2023

Preprint

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“…This information is key for developing, implementing, and assessing beaver‐based restoration programs, as well as for general conservation and population monitoring. Beavers are a keystone species and ecosystem engineers whose presence has been linked to enhanced biodiversity; improved water quality; ecosystem resilience to floods, droughts, and fires; more and larger endangered fishes in rivers; aquifer recharge; and carbon sequestration (Brazier et al., 2021; Jordan & Fairfax, 2022; Larsen et al., 2021). Monitoring their population and impact provides valuable information about numerous interconnected physical and biological processes—not just about the beavers themselves.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are no systematic or widespread beaver population monitoring programs in the United States, however, it is estimated that the current population of beavers in North America is roughly 15–30 million (Naiman et al., 1988). The conversation around beavers has shifted in recent decades, with more emphasis placed on the idea of beavers as river restoration partners rather than as pests or commodities (Johnson et al., 2019; Jordan & Fairfax, 2022; Pollock et al., 2015; Pugh et al., 2022; Skidmore & Wheaton, 2022). Recent research highlights the ability for beaver activity to sequester carbon (Laurel & Wohl, 2019; Wohl, 2013), support sensitive, threatened, and endangered species (Anderson et al., 2015; Bouwes et al., 2016; Dittbrenner et al., 2022; Romansic et al., 2020), attenuate flood waves (A. Puttock et al., 2017, 2021; C. J. Westbrook et al., 2020), keep vegetation green and maintain baseflow during droughts (Fairfax & Small, 2018; Silverman et al., 2019), and create patches of wildfire refugia (Fairfax & Whittle, 2020; Foster et al., 2020; Whipple, 2019; Wohl et al., 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

EEAGER: A Neural Network Model for Finding Beaver Complexes in Satellite and Aerial Imagery

et al. 2023

Self Cite

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Introduction Past and Present Distribution of North American BeaversThe North American beaver (Castor canadensis) is widely known as a keystone species and an ecosystem engineer (Brazier et al., 2021). Beavers drastically alter the physical environment by building channel spanning dams, excavating networks of small canals throughout the floodplain, and selectively foraging woody riparian vegetation (Larsen et al., 2021). These landscape modifications create and maintain riparian wetland ecosystems in a variety of environmental settings, including deserts, tundra, forests, rangelands, shrublands, estuaries, alpine headwaters, and urban areas (

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“…However, beaver were effectively removed for the European fur market and this precipitated the first widespread step in riverscape transformation to poor quality and minimized quantity breeding and rearing habitat (Pollock et al, 2014). Efforts to restore beaver or mimic their dams are a recent effort in river stewardship (Pollock et al, 2014) as a resist strategy that promises multiple ecosystem services (Jordan & Fairfax, 2022), where feasible.…”

Section: Habitat Loss Recognition and Restorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Resist‐Accept‐Direct (RAD) future for Salmon in Maine and California: Salmon at the southern edge

Kocik

Hayes

Carlson

et al. 2022

Fisheries Management Eco

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North American salmon once ranged from ocean waters near the Arctic Circle southward to southern New England on the Atlantic and Mexico on the Pacific. The colonial and industrial transformation of rivers and oceans have led to extirpation or endangered status of many southern populations. Today, chronic anthropogenic stressors interact with climate change, which means that effective conservation must address changes in transformed ecosystems. Conservation goals are designed to recover both the species and their habitats. While seemingly congruent, habitat and fish management have different timetables due to speed of changes in climate, habitat, and biological processes relative to regulatory processes, habitat restoration, and project implementation. The Resist‐Accept‐Direct (RAD) framework facilitated exploration of ideas and actions to restore suitable conditions for salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act at their southern edge. Creative and big solutions are needed to recover salmon and RAD provided a way to examine conservation options to sustain salmon in an era of change.

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Beaver: The North American freshwater climate action plan

Cited by 25 publications

References 123 publications

Empirical stream thermal sensitivities cluster on the landscape according to geology and climate

Empirical stream thermal sensitivities cluster on the landscape according to geology and climate

EEAGER: A Neural Network Model for Finding Beaver Complexes in Satellite and Aerial Imagery

A Resist‐Accept‐Direct (RAD) future for Salmon in Maine and California: Salmon at the southern edge

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