Land managers have invested millions of dollars annually since the 1980s to place large pieces of wood back in streams, owing primarily to its importance for fish habitat.
Land managers have invested millions of dollars annually since the 1980s to place large pieces of wood back in streams, owing primarily to its importance for fish habitat. But little is known about how large wood in streams impacts birds and land-based animals.
Oregon State University scientists Ezmie Trevarrow and Ivan Arismendi are beginning to change that with a just-published paper in Biodiversity and Conservation that outlines what they observed from one year of footage from motion-triggered video cameras they set up near multiple large log jams in a creek just west of Corvallis.
“This study reveals a hidden role of large wood in streams,” said Trevarrow, who conducted the research as an undergraduate in the Honors College at Oregon State and is now a research associate at the University of Georgia. “The findings are valuable for land managers because they demonstrate additional value of restoration projects that involve wood placement into streams.”
In the paper, Trevarrow and Arismendi focused their attention on what species they saw, the most common observed activities and the seasonality of the detections.
Read more at Oregon State University
Image: Bobcat observed by a motion-triggered camera operated by Oregon State University researchers at Rock Creek, just west of Corvallis, Oregon. (Credit: Oregon State University)
