The climate-driven spread of beaver ponds in Alaska’s Arctic accelerates the effects of a warming environment by causing pond-adjacent permafrost to thaw and by increasing the amount of liquid water present during winter.
The climate-driven spread of beaver ponds in Alaska’s Arctic accelerates the effects of a warming environment by causing pond-adjacent permafrost to thaw and by increasing the amount of liquid water present during winter.
Those are the key findings of the first comprehensive, on-the-ground assessment of the northward migration of beavers. The research was led by postdoctoral researcher Thomas Glass and research professor Ken Tape at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute.
“The idea was to get on the ground to start to measure some of the effects of beavers on the ecosystem and to get a close-up perspective of what’s happening out there,” Glass said.
The findings were published Sept. 28 in Ecosphere. The nine co-authors include seven from UAF as well as one each from Colgate University and the University of Toronto.
Read More: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Image: Tom Glass and Rodrigo Rangel navigate a beaver pond on the northern Seward Peninsula in August 2024. (Photo by Benjamin Jones)
