Exploring the effectiveness of using beaver as an aquatic ecosystem restoration tool

海狸是众所周知的生态系统工程师，因为它们有能力创造、破坏和改变水生栖息地。海狸草甸形成理论是一个概念框架，它解释和预测海狸如何影响形成包括河岸地带在内的溪谷的物理过程。由于草甸理论全面描述了海狸活动对生态系统的影响，以及它在预测海狸后可能的未来(演替途径)方面的能力，该理论在指导水生生态系统恢复战略方面具有相当大的前景。然而，关于海狸如何垂直和塑造水生生态系统的关键问题需要回答，才能将海狸草甸形成理论应用于实践。海狸在水环境中调节的水文和地貌功能的范围是什么？而且，我们在哪里可以和不可以使用海狸作为一种可行的恢复选择？我建议通过研究海狸如何在三种不同的占领历史中塑造和垂直水生生态系统来解决这些问题：本地、外来和重新引入。在它们的原生栖息地，实地观察和实验将被用来评估海狸如何以及在哪里提供增强的水文弹性，在一个容易发生洪水和干旱的地区，即加拿大落基山脉的东坡。在它们奇异的栖息地(巴塔哥尼亚南部的沼泽)，将利用恢复实验来评估水文过程和土壤水力特性变化的范围和持久性。在重新引入的栖息地，我们将确定海狸是否在其被占领的栖息地触发了矿物沉积物的积累过程，并开始形成海狸草甸。我们将把这项研究的重点放在苏格兰的溪流上，在离开400年后，海狸最近被重新引入到那里。总而言之，拟议的研究应该会对它们的工程能力所影响的变化的范围和持久性产生新的见解。通过研究获得的见解将有助于增进对如何最好地与生物合作，以最好地保护和恢复退化生境中的水生生态系统功能的理解。我们预计这项研究也将为环境管理者提供具体的建议，这些管理者希望使用海狸草甸形成理论来指导水生生态系统的恢复工作。拟议的研究涉及通过博士后研究员以本科生的形式广泛培训高素质人员。计划中的培训计划将使学员做好准备，以满足加拿大及其他地区对技术专家、创新者、领导者和有影响力的研究人员的需求。

Beavers are known ecosystem engineers due to their ability to create, destroy and modify aquatic habitats. The beaver meadow formation theory is a conceptual framework that explains and predicts how beavers influence the physical processes that form stream valleys including the riparian zone. The meadow theory holds considerable promise in informing aquatic ecosystem restoration strategy owing to the theory's holistic description of ecosystem impacts of beaver activities and its power in predicting possible futures (successional pathways) post-beaver. Yet, key questions on how beaver plumb and shape aquatic ecosystems need answering in order to put beaver meadow formation theory to use in practice. What is the range of hydrologic and geomorphic functions that beavers mediate in aquatic environments? And, where can and cannot we use beavers as a viable restoration option? I propose to address these questions through studying how beaver shape and plumb aquatic ecosystems across the three sets of occupation histories: native, exotic, reintroduced. In their native habitat, field observations and experiments will be used to evaluate how and where beaver offer enhanced hydrologic resiliency in a region prone to floods and droughts, the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies. In their exotic habitat (fens in southern Patagonia), restoration experiments will be used to evaluate the scope and permanence of changes to hydrological processes and soil hydraulic properties. In their reintroduced habitat, we will determine whether beaver have triggered mineral sediment accretion processes in their occupied habitats and initiated the formation of beaver meadows. We will focus that research on streams in Scotland to which beaver were recently reintroduced after a 400 year absence. In all, the proposed research should yield new insights into the scope and permanence of the changes effected by their engineering capabilities. The insights gained through the research will help advance understanding of how to best work with organisms to best protect and restore aquatic ecosystem functions in degraded habitats. We expect the research will also provide concrete advice to environmental managers wanting to use beaver meadow formation theory to guide aquatic ecosystem restoration efforts. The proposed research involves extensive training of highly qualified personnel in the form of undergraduates through postdoctoral fellows. The planned training program will ready trainees to fill the demand for technical experts, innovators, leaders and influential researchers in Canada and beyond.