Beaver Engineering: Tracking a New Disturbance in the Arctic

Details

• Personal Author:
  Tape, K. D. ; Clark, J. A. ; Jones, B. M. ; Wheeler, H. C. ; Marsh, P. ; Rosell, F.
• Corporate Authors:
  United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. ; Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing (GOMO) Program
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; GOMO (Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing)
• Description:
  Research on North American beaver (Castor canadensis) engineering in the Arctic has made great strides in recent years, but most of the work lies ahead. Over the last several decades, people in remote Alaska communities have observed an influx of beavers (ADF&G Reports 1965-2017). We quantified this trend by using satellite imagery to detect beaver pond formation in Alaska tundra regions, mapping approximately 12,000 beaver ponds (e.g., Fig. 1, right panel), including a doubling in most areas during the last 20 years (Tape et al. 2021). We showed that new beavers are controlling surface water increases, which affects underlying permafrost (Jones et al. 2020).
• Keywords:
  • Arctic Report Card
• Series:
  NOAA Technical Report OAR ARC 21-09
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.25923/0jtd-vv85
• Document Type:
  Technical Report
• Place as Subject:
  Arctic regions
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC0 Public Domain
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/34307/noaa_34307_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.79 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:94c269f7ed6d541949ac771c63841a0b79ee113260533d39134d0a84afa44f69