Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Life Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Castor canadensis

Discipline
Institution
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type

Articles 1 - 24 of 24

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Individual Trophic Niche Specialization In American Beaver (Castor Canadensis), Jimmy Taylor, Robert Francis, Scott Rush, Bronson Strickland, Guiming Wang Apr 2022

Individual Trophic Niche Specialization In American Beaver (Castor Canadensis), Jimmy Taylor, Robert Francis, Scott Rush, Bronson Strickland, Guiming Wang

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The American beaver (Castor canadensis) has been described as a choosy generalist at the species/population scale, yet observational studies have shown little variation in diet among individuals. We compared isotopic values of δ13C or δ15N taken from hair of 32 beaver, representing seven colonies in northern Alabama, USA to determine 1) if colonies of beaver show overlap in isotopic niche width as a result of the similar use of food resources and 2) if individual trophic niche specialization occurs within colonies. Total Trophic Niche Width varied across the wetland with the widest being twice …

Go to article

Movement Patterns Of Resident And Translocated Beavers At Multiple Spatiotemporal Scales In Desert Rivers, Emma Doden, Phaedra Budy, Tal Avgar, Julie Young Mar 2022

Movement Patterns Of Resident And Translocated Beavers At Multiple Spatiotemporal Scales In Desert Rivers, Emma Doden, Phaedra Budy, Tal Avgar, Julie Young

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Wildlife translocations alter animal movement behavior, so identifying common movement patterns post-translocation will help set expectations about animal behavior in subsequent efforts. American and Eurasian beavers (Castor canadensis; Castor fiber) are frequently translocated for reintroductions, to mitigate human-wildlife conflict, and as an ecosystem restoration tool. However, little is known about movement behavior of translocated beavers post-release, especially in desert rivers with patchy and dynamic resources. We identified space-use patterns of beaver movement behavior after translocation. We translocated and monitored nuisance American beavers in desert river restoration sites on the Price and San Rafael Rivers, Utah, USA, and compared …

Go to article

Dammed Water Quality—Longitudinal Stream Responses Below Beaver Ponds In The Umpqua River Basin, Oregon, John R. Stevenson, Jason B. Dunham, Steven M. Wondzell, Jimmy Taylor Jan 2022

Dammed Water Quality—Longitudinal Stream Responses Below Beaver Ponds In The Umpqua River Basin, Oregon, John R. Stevenson, Jason B. Dunham, Steven M. Wondzell, Jimmy Taylor

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Beaver-related restoration (BRR) has gained popularity as a means of improving stream ecosystems, but the effects are not fully understood. Studies of dissolved oxygen (DO) and water temperature, key water quality metrics for salmonids, have demonstrated improved conditions in some cases, but warming and decreased DO have been more commonly reported in meta-analyses. These results point to the contingencies that can influence outcomes from BRR. We examined water quality related to beaver ponds in a diverse coastal watershed (Umpqua River Basin, OR, USA). We monitored water temperature 0–400m above and below beaver ponds and at pond surfaces and bottoms across …

Go to article

A Comparison Of The Ecology Of Resident And Translocated Beavers Used For Passive Restoration In Degraded Desert Rivers, Emma Doden Dec 2021

A Comparison Of The Ecology Of Resident And Translocated Beavers Used For Passive Restoration In Degraded Desert Rivers, Emma Doden

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Ecosystem engineers are species that create, destroy, modify, or maintain habitat. As ecosystem engineers, beavers have the potential to assist in stream restoration. Translocation is the capture and relocation of an animal to another area. Translocation of nuisance beavers has become a popular method to reduce human-wildlife conflict and restore waterways. However, few projects monitor beavers after release and compare behavior to naturally occurring resident beavers. Translocations to desert rivers are also rare. We captured, tagged, and monitored 47 beavers which we translocated to desert river restoration sites on the Price and San Rafael Rivers, Utah, USA. We compared translocated …

Go to article

An Evaluation Of Body-Grip Trap Trigger Configurations For Reducing River Otter Take Incidental To Beaver Trapping, Alec J. Sundelius, Nicholas Forman, Nathan M. Roberts, Shawn T. Rossler, David B. Ruid, Robert C. Willging Jun 2021

An Evaluation Of Body-Grip Trap Trigger Configurations For Reducing River Otter Take Incidental To Beaver Trapping, Alec J. Sundelius, Nicholas Forman, Nathan M. Roberts, Shawn T. Rossler, David B. Ruid, Robert C. Willging

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

River otter (Lontra canadensis) populations in North America have been the focus of significant restoration efforts. Wildlife management agencies, concerned about the unintentional take of river otters incidental to beaver (Castor canadensis) trapping, may recommend techniques to avoid capturing river otters. River otter avoidance techniques that are ineffective or diminish trap performance for beavers are undesirable. We conducted a field evaluation in 2015 and 2016 in Wisconsin to assess how two trigger configurations (offset and center) on body-grip traps would affect the incidental capture rate of river otters during beaver trapping. We also evaluated effects of …

Go to article

Landscape Genetics Of American Beaver In Coastal Oregon, Clinton W. Epps, Vanessa M. Petro, Tyler G. Creech, Rachel S. Crowhurst, Matthew J. Weldy, Jimmy D. Taylor May 2021

Landscape Genetics Of American Beaver In Coastal Oregon, Clinton W. Epps, Vanessa M. Petro, Tyler G. Creech, Rachel S. Crowhurst, Matthew J. Weldy, Jimmy D. Taylor

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

American beaver (Castor canadensis) have been translocated for population restoration, reduction of human‐wildlife conflict, and enhancement of ecosystem function. Yet few studies have assessed dispersal of beaver, making it difficult to determine at what scale translocations are appropriate. Genetic studies can provide inferences about gene flow, and thus dispersal. We used a landscape genetic approach to evaluate whether landscape features influenced gene flow among beaver in the Coast Range of western Oregon, USA, using samples collected April–September 2014. We collected genetic samples from live‐captured (n=232), road‐killed (n=2) and trapper‐provided (n=58) tissue samples and genotyped them at 10 microsatellite loci. We …

Go to article

Spatial Transferability Of Expert Opinion Models For American Beaver Habitat, Isidro Barela, Leslie M. Burger, Guiming Wang, Kristine O. Evans, Qingmin Meng, Jimmy D. Taylor Jan 2021

Spatial Transferability Of Expert Opinion Models For American Beaver Habitat, Isidro Barela, Leslie M. Burger, Guiming Wang, Kristine O. Evans, Qingmin Meng, Jimmy D. Taylor

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Species distribution models and habitat suitability models (HSMs) have become a popular tool in the conservation of biodiversity. However, the ability to predict species spatial distributions at sites beyond the data source sites (i.e., spatial transferability) is critical for the applications of HSMs in the management and conservation of rare or endangered species. The main objective of our study was to assess the predictive performance and spatial transferability of expert opinion models (EOMs). To build EOMs, we identified through extensive literature reviews 17 key landscape variables to characterize habitat use by American beaver (Castor canadensis). We developed 31 pairwise opinion …

Go to article

Relationships Between Survival And Habitat Suitability Of Semi- Aquatic Mammals, Isidro Barela, Leslie M. Burger, Jimmy Taylor, Kristine O. Evans, Ryo Ogawa, Lance Mcclintic, Guiming Wang Mar 2020

Relationships Between Survival And Habitat Suitability Of Semi- Aquatic Mammals, Isidro Barela, Leslie M. Burger, Jimmy Taylor, Kristine O. Evans, Ryo Ogawa, Lance Mcclintic, Guiming Wang

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Spatial distribution and habitat selection are integral to the study of animal ecology. Habitat selection may optimize the fitness of individuals. Hutchinsonian niche theory posits the fundamental niche of species would support the persistence or growth of populations. Although niche-based species distribution models (SDMs) and habitat suitability models (HSMs) such as maximum entropy (Maxent) have demonstrated fair to excellent predictive power, few studies have linked the prediction of HSMs to demographic rates. We aimed to test the prediction of Hutchinsonian niche theory that habitat suitability (i.e., likelihood of occurrence) would be positively related to survival of American beaver (Castor canadensis), …

Go to article

Assessing Beaver Occupancy And Dam Building Potential: A Case Study In The Umpqua Watershed Of Southwestern Oregon, Vanessa M. Petro, John Stevenson, Jimmy Taylor Jan 2020

Assessing Beaver Occupancy And Dam Building Potential: A Case Study In The Umpqua Watershed Of Southwestern Oregon, Vanessa M. Petro, John Stevenson, Jimmy Taylor

Vertebrate Pest Conference Proceedings: 29th (2020)

Interest in beaver-related restoration is growing in the western U.S. but understanding the basic ecology of American beaver and their population dynamics is often overlooked when integrating beaver into stream restoration goals. Our study investigated the spatial-temporal distribution of beaver colonies and their damming activities to better inform stream restoration projects in the West Fork Cow Creek Basin of the Umpqua Watershed in southwestern Oregon. During fall 2017, we conducted beaver activity surveys at 144 randomly selected reaches predicted to be either suitable or unsuitable for damming, but suitable for beaver occupation. We categorized beaver use at each reach using …

Go to article

Habitat Selection By American Beaverat Multiple Spatial Scales, Guiming Wang, Lance F. Mcclintic, Jimmy D. Taylor May 2019

Habitat Selection By American Beaverat Multiple Spatial Scales, Guiming Wang, Lance F. Mcclintic, Jimmy D. Taylor

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Background: Semiaquatic mammals require both aquatic and terrestrial habitats, particularly interfaces between the two habitats. As ecosystem engineers, American beaver (Castor canadensis) consume and fell a great amount of deciduous trees. We tested the prediction that open water and amounts of food resources, including hardwood forests (i.e., deciduous trees as the dominant form of vegetation), herbaceous and woody wetlands, and shrubs, would influence the second-order habitat selection (i.e., placing home ranges on the landscape) by American beaver, whereas the third-order habitat selection of American beaver would be associated with woody wetland and shrub edges. We investigated hierarchical habitat selection by …

Go to article

Beavers, Jimmy D. Taylor, Greg K. Yarrow, James E. Miller Mar 2017

Beavers, Jimmy D. Taylor, Greg K. Yarrow, James E. Miller

Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series

The American beaver (Castor canadensis) (Figure 1) is known as an “ecosystem engineer” because of the benefits their dams provide to biological diversity and ecosystem function. It also is considered a “keystone species” because of its ability to transform its environment, creating new habitats upon which other species depend. Despite the many positive benefits beavers provide through foraging and dam building, beavers also create conflict with people when their activities cause damage. The authors of this publication acknowledge and appreciate the many positive benefits that beavers provide; however, the focus of this publication is to provide basic information on beaver …

Go to article

Restricted Cross-Scale Habitat Selection By American Beavers, Robert A. Francis, Jimmy D. Taylor, Eric Dibble, Bronson Strickland, Vanessa M. Petro, Christine Easterwood, Guiming Wang Jan 2017

Restricted Cross-Scale Habitat Selection By American Beavers, Robert A. Francis, Jimmy D. Taylor, Eric Dibble, Bronson Strickland, Vanessa M. Petro, Christine Easterwood, Guiming Wang

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Animal habitat selection, among other ecological phenomena, is spatially scale dependent. Habitat selection by American beavers Castor canadensis (hereafter, beaver) has been studied at singular spatial scales, but to date no research addresses multi-scale selection. Our objectives were to determine if beaver habitat selection was specialized to semiaquatic habitats and if variables explaining habitat selection are consistent between landscape and fine spatial scales. We built maximum entropy (MaxEnt) models to relate landscape-scale presence-only data to landscape variables, and used generalized linearmixed models to evaluate fine spatial scale habitat selection using global positioning system (GPS) relocation data. Explanatory variables between the …

Go to article

Where And How Wolves (Canis Lupus) Kill Beavers (Castor Canadensis), Thomas Gable, Steve K. Windels, John G. Bruggink, Austin T. Homkes Dec 2016

Where And How Wolves (Canis Lupus) Kill Beavers (Castor Canadensis), Thomas Gable, Steve K. Windels, John G. Bruggink, Austin T. Homkes

Journal Articles

Beavers (Castor canadensis) can be a significant prey item for wolves (Canis lupus) in boreal ecosystems due to their abundance and vulnerability on land. How wolves hunt beavers in these systems is largely unknown, however, because observing predation is challenging. We inferred how wolves hunt beavers by identifying kill sites using clusters of locations from GPS-collared wolves in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. We identified 22 sites where wolves from 4 different packs killed beavers. We classified these kill sites into 8 categories based on the beaver-habitat type near which each kill occurred. Seasonal variation existed in …

Go to article

Wolf Predation: Where And How Wolves Kill Beavers, And Confronting The Biases In Scat-Based Diet Studies, Thomas Gable Dec 2016

Wolf Predation: Where And How Wolves Kill Beavers, And Confronting The Biases In Scat-Based Diet Studies, Thomas Gable

All NMU Master's Theses

Beavers can be a significant prey item for wolves in boreal systems but how wolves hunt beavers is largely unknown. I inferred how wolves hunt beavers by identifying 22 kill sites using clusters of locations from GPS-collared wolves in Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. Where wolves killed beavers varied seasonally with the majority (58%) of kills in the spring occurring below dams and on shorelines while the majority (80%) of kills in the fall were near feeding trails and canals. I deduced that the typical hunting strategy has 3 components: 1) waiting near areas of high beaver use until a beaver …

Go to article

Mammalian Records From Southwestern Kansas And Northwestern Oklahoma, Including The First Record Of Crawford’S Desert Shrew (Notiosorex Crawfordi) From Kansas, Cody A. Dreier, Keith Geluso, Jennifer D. Frisch, Brittney N. Adams, Alyx R. Lingenfelter, Anthony E. Bridger, Patricia Freeman, Cliff Lemen, Jeremy A. White, Brett R. Andersen, Hans W. Otto, Curtis J. Schmidt Jul 2015

Mammalian Records From Southwestern Kansas And Northwestern Oklahoma, Including The First Record Of Crawford’S Desert Shrew (Notiosorex Crawfordi) From Kansas, Cody A. Dreier, Keith Geluso, Jennifer D. Frisch, Brittney N. Adams, Alyx R. Lingenfelter, Anthony E. Bridger, Patricia Freeman, Cliff Lemen, Jeremy A. White, Brett R. Andersen, Hans W. Otto, Curtis J. Schmidt

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

Mammalian distributions are constantly changing. Some distributional shifts reflect habitat change, climate change, and human transplantations; thus, such shifts are due to actual expansions or contractions of populations. However, other species ranges that appear to shift as the result of new records being added to known distributional limits actually might reflect populations that previously were undetected due to a lack of past surveys or species that are difficult to detect. In 2013, multiple techniques were employed to document mammalian distributional records in southwestern Kansas and northwestern Oklahoma. We discovered three new county records in Morton County, Kansas (Crawford’s Desert Shrew, …

Go to article

The Effects Of Beaver Dams On The Structure And Function Of Invertebrate Communities In A Southeastern Coastal Plain Stream, Damon L. Mullis Jan 2014

The Effects Of Beaver Dams On The Structure And Function Of Invertebrate Communities In A Southeastern Coastal Plain Stream, Damon L. Mullis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Beaver were at the brink of extinction in the early 20th century, but over the past century populations have been rebounding. This increase in range and population size has raised new concerns over possible impacts on aquatic ecosystems. Beaver are considered ecosystem engineers because they change the physical structure of aquatic systems through the construction of dams, which turn naturally flowing sections of rivers and streams into standing water. Such changes are known to influence habitat heterogeneity, influence organic matter transport and storage, and consequentially influence biological diversity. To my knowledge, no studies of the effects of beaver impoundments …

Go to article

Effects Of Spatiotemporal Resource Heterogeneity On Home Range Size Of American Beaver, L. F. Mcclintic, J. D. Taylor Ii, J. C. Jones, R. D. Singleton, G. Wang Jan 2014

Effects Of Spatiotemporal Resource Heterogeneity On Home Range Size Of American Beaver, L. F. Mcclintic, J. D. Taylor Ii, J. C. Jones, R. D. Singleton, G. Wang

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Home range size of terrestrial animals may be influenced by spatiotemporal dynamics of resources. However, little is known regarding the effects of spatiotemporal resource availability on semi-aquatic central place foragers such as the American beaver Castor canadensis. From January 2011 to April 2012, 26 beavers at 11 wetlands at Redstone Arsenal in north-central Alabama, USA, were captured and radio-tracked using radio telemetry. The objectives of this study were to test the predictions of three hypotheses: (1) the resource dispersion hypothesis: more spatially dispersed resources throughout a landscape increase home range sizes; (2) the temporal resource variability hypothesis: more temporally …

Go to article

Predator Cues Reduce American Beaver Use Of Foraging Trails, William J. Severud, Jerrold L. Belant, John G. Bruggink, Steve K. Windels Jan 2011

Predator Cues Reduce American Beaver Use Of Foraging Trails, William J. Severud, Jerrold L. Belant, John G. Bruggink, Steve K. Windels

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Herbivores must balance energy needs with avoiding risks, using various cues to assess predation risk. The American beaver (Castor canadensis) is a semi-aquatic herbivore vulnerable to predation on land by wolves (Canis lupis). We tested the use of wolf urine as a potential tool to reduce human–beaver conflicts. We used infrared cameras to monitor use of terrestrial foraging trails by beavers during food cache construction in Seney National Wildlife Refuge, Michigan, from September to November 2008. Two foraging trails at 15 colonies (30 total trails) were monitored for 1 week to establish baseline use. One trail …

Go to article

Economic Evaluation Of Beaver Management To Protect Timber Resources In Mississippi, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Katy N. Kirkpatrick, Kris Godwin Jan 2011

Economic Evaluation Of Beaver Management To Protect Timber Resources In Mississippi, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Katy N. Kirkpatrick, Kris Godwin

Human–Wildlife Interactions

It has become essential for groups involved with wildlife policy formulation and decision making to examine the economic benefits and costs derived from the management of nuisance wildlife species. Beavers (Castor canadensis) in Mississippi have seen significant population fluctuations over the last 150 years as their status has changed from a game species to protected species to nuisance species. The objectives of this study were to assess the beaver-caused economic impacts to the timber industry in Mississippi and estimate the damages avoided due to Mississippi’s Beaver Control Assistance Program (BCAP) activities from 2005 to 2009. The total BCAP …

Go to article

The River Discontinuum: Applying Beaver Modifications To Baseline Conditions For Restoration Of Forested Headwaters, Denise Burchsted, Melinda Daniels, Robert Thorson, Jason Vokoun Dec 2010

The River Discontinuum: Applying Beaver Modifications To Baseline Conditions For Restoration Of Forested Headwaters, Denise Burchsted, Melinda Daniels, Robert Thorson, Jason Vokoun

Center for Integrative Geosciences

Billions of dollars are being spent in the United States to restore rivers to a desired, yet often unknown, reference condition. In lieu of a known reference, practitioners typically assume the paradigm of a connected watercourse. Geological and ecological processes, however, create patchy and discontinuous fluvial systems. One of these processes, dam building by North American beavers (Castor canadensis), generated discontinuities throughout precolonial river systems of northern North America. Under modern conditions, beaver dams create dynamic sequences of ponds and wet meadows among free-flowing segments. One beaver impoundment alone can exceed 1000 meters along the river, flood the valley laterally, …

Go to article

Use Of Snares To Live-Capture Beavers, Lance B. Mcnew Jr., Clayton K. Nielsen, Craig K. Bloomquist Jan 2007

Use Of Snares To Live-Capture Beavers, Lance B. Mcnew Jr., Clayton K. Nielsen, Craig K. Bloomquist

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Wildlife managers, researchers, and nuisance-control operators often require a nonlethal means of capturing beavers (Castor canadensis). Historically, live-capture has relied on enclosure-type traps such as Bailey or Hancock traps. We describe the live-capture of 231 beavers using snares in southern Illinois from 2002 to 2005. Capture success averaged 5.4 beavers/100 trap-nights. Capture success did not differ between sexes (P = 0.57) or age-classes (P = 0.68). We captured most beavers in haul-out slide sets, surface run sets, or channel sets. Recaptures accounted for 28% (n = 65) of all captures. Mortality rate using snares was …

Go to article

Heritability Of Kinship Pheromone In The Beaver: How Is Information About Relatedness Coded?, Lixing Sun, Dietland Muller-Schwarze Jan 2004

Heritability Of Kinship Pheromone In The Beaver: How Is Information About Relatedness Coded?, Lixing Sun, Dietland Muller-Schwarze

Biology Faculty Scholarship

We attempted to estimate the narrow-sense heritability of single compounds and whole profile of the anal gland secretion (AGS) with the regression method using several sets of relatives in the beaver (Castor canadensis). We used GC (gas chromatography) and GC-MS (mass spectrometry) to characterize and quantify chemical compounds in beaver AGS. We found that the heritability of single compounds seemed to be low, whereas the heritability of AGS profile appeared to be moderate. We conclude that many compounds might be involved in the coding of genetic relatedness, which was through a combination of analog and digital coding using …

Go to article

A Baseline Assessment Of Furbearers On The Upper Coastal Plain Of Virginia, A. Scott Bellows, Joseph C. Mitchell Jan 2002

A Baseline Assessment Of Furbearers On The Upper Coastal Plain Of Virginia, A. Scott Bellows, Joseph C. Mitchell

Virginia Journal of Science

We assessed the status of furbearing mammals on Fort A.P. Hill, Caroline County, Virginia during the 1998-1999 trapping season with the cooperation of local licensed trappers. Our analyses were based on 345 captures representing of 10 mammal species, ranging from one bobcat (Lynx rufus) to 157 beavers (Castor canadensis). Mean number of captures per 100 trap nights was 17.0. Captures varied from 11.9 to 17.9 per 100 trap nights for conibear traps and 9.7 to 18.3 per 100 trap nights for leg-hold traps. External measurements of six species were similar to those reported for other populations …

Go to article

Use Of Anal Gland Secretion To Distinguish The Two Beaver Species Castor Canadensis And C. Fiber, Frank Rosell, Lixing Sun Jun 1999

Use Of Anal Gland Secretion To Distinguish The Two Beaver Species Castor Canadensis And C. Fiber, Frank Rosell, Lixing Sun

Biology Faculty Scholarship

Introduced North American beavers Castor canadensis pose a potential threat to the continuing recovery of Eurasian beaver C. fiber populations in several European countries. For management purposes, it is necessary to be able to identify and distinguish the two species. This, however, is difficult because the two species are morphologically, ecologically and behaviorally similar. To find a method for species identification, we examined the possibility of using anal gland secretion (AGS) collected from the two beaver species. We asked 20 inexperienced volunteers to inspect the color and viscosity of the AGS. When we provided the volunteers with the sex of …

Go to article