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Source: Melinda 1xbet online casino , 785-532-0765, mddaniel@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Jennifer Torline, 785-532-0847, jtorline@k-state.edu
Monday, Jan. 3, 2011
THE ECOSYSTEM ENGINEER: RESEARCH LOOKS AT BEAVERS' ROLE IN 1xbet online casino RESTORATION
MANHATTAN -- When engineers restore rivers, one Kansas State University professor hopes they'll keep a smaller engineer in mind: the North American 1xbet online casino .
Beavers are often called ecosystem engineers because they can radically alter stream or valley bottom ecosystems, said Melinda Daniels, an associate professor of geography who recently studied the connection between beavers and 1xbet online casino restoration. Beaver dams create diverse 1xbet online casino landscapes, she said, and can turn a single-thread channel stream into a meadow, pond or multichannel, free-flowing stream.
&1xbet online casino ;Our argument is that the restoration target for streams with forested riparian zones has got to acknowledge the diversity brought to river systems by active beaver populations,&1xbet online casino ; Daniels said.
Daniels and three researchers from the University of Connecticut co-authored &1xbet online casino ;The River Discontinuum: Applying Beaver Modifications to Baseline Conditions for Restoration of Forested Headwaters.&1xbet online casino ; The article, led by Denise Burchsted at the University of Connecticut, appears in a recent issue of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
While the research involves observations of several watersheds in northeastern Connecticut, the results are applicable to any forested stream, which typically have large beaver populations. Beaver populations have rebounded in recent years, 1xbet online casino , after coming close to extinction in the early 19th century by hunters for their fur.
The ultimate goal of the research, 1xbet online casino , is to help restore rivers in an efficient way that acknowledges ecosystem diversity and doesn't destroy it.
&1xbet online casino ;A lot of rivers are in trouble and need work and restoration, but it's amazing how little we know about the systems we're trying to fix,&1xbet online casino ; she said. &1xbet online casino ;We know they're broken, but we don't exactly know what they should look like because we know so little about how many of our river systems function.&1xbet online casino ;
Current restoration projects often don't consider the role of beavers as ecosystem engineers, and instead focus on creating continuous free-flowing streams, 1xbet online casino . Such restoration can be expensive because it usually involves completely tearing down small 19th-century milldams and re-engineering an entire valley bottom.
Rather than tear down the whole milldam and radically change the surrounding ecosystem, the researchers recommend 1xbet online casino restorers only remove part of it. This allows some ponded water to remain and mimics the role of beavers. Daniels said that in many cases if an old dam breaks and forms a gap, beavers may build their own dam to patch the gap and recreate the ecosystem that previously existed.
The researchers plan to continue 1xbet online casino observations and collect more data to provide 1xbet online casino restorers with insight for maintaining 1xbet online casino ecosystem diversity.
&1xbet online casino ;You can use these natural analogs to produce an ecosystem that looks a lot more like the one that was there before the colonists arrived,&1xbet online casino ; Daniels said. &1xbet online casino ;We can restore rivers in a way that mimics the naturally diverse beaver streams, and we can save a lot of money in the process.&1xbet online casino ;