Changing the Climate: Sharing Conversations that Make Beavers Matter

NASA has confirmed that July 2023 was the hottest month on record since 1880. More than any mere heat wave, the chronic extremes earth faced this summer require new ways of life. That is to say, new ways of sustaining daily acts of survival: how we gather food, how we use water, and even how we talk to each other. In August, when Montana youth triumphed in their defense of our state's constitutional right to a "clean and healthful environment," they reminded us how powerfully language shapes our most vital thoughts, values, and actions. The existential threats the youth cited have differing effects on each of us, physically and psychologically. But just as the beaver is a keystone species centering many ecological relatinships, so too can this rodent bring people together for solution-oriented conversations that matter.

In the not so distant past, conversations with the word "beaver" were often adjacent to words like "nuisance" or "pest." But today, we're increasingly seeing this humble rodent paired with phrases like "resilience" or "adaptation." Headlines are donning the beaver as a hero who beats heat and even as a firefighter who can buffer blazes. When chosen and applied with accuracy, nuance, and tact, the new designations make a difference. In Oregon, for example, the governor has recently signed a bill to remove the beaver's current classification as a "predatory animal," a change that will also acknowledges and protect the beaver's capacity to mitigate climate change's effects. Overdue as this might be for the so-called Beaver State, the beaver science and its movement is now helping all of us to speak and act on behalf of this rodent with language fit for our times.

Here in Montana, Bozeman-based Amy McNamara recently picked up on this theme. McNamara is a conservationist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and her compelling new blog post distills core context for a more effective future with beavers. This reads like a cool rain after a stretch of sweltering in the smoke, and it provides a great road map for the Montana Beaver Working Group, which is actively planning several of the practical suggestions she offers.

Are you are looking to share transformative conversations about beavers and climate change with your friends and family? How about your co-workers and colleagues? Or, how about your neighbors who might not seem to care about or agree with your thoughts? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, check out this constructive training with scientist Emily Fairfax, hosted via the Beaver Institute's National Beaver Working Group forum. Her tips and techniques are relevant for us all, and they are sure to change the climate of our conversations with inspiration, focus, and action.

Questions on Questions: UM Research Explores How BDAs Affect Carbon

Two years ago, this newsletter introduced pioneering new research out of the Ecosystems Lab at the University of Montana. Back then, graduate student Hilary Schultz was just starting to explore how BDAs affect carbon biogeochemistry with Associate Professor of Aquatic Ecosystem Ecology, Ben Colman. But as of August 25, 2023, Hilary succesfully defended her master's thesis, which is brimming with relevant insights for the Montana Beaver Working Group (BWG). Given the dynamic complexity of the research process, this increasingly significant topic, and the necessity of asking good questions, we asked Schultz to reflect on some of the inquiry that was part of her journey. Congratulations and many thanks to Hilary for her impressive contributions to the science of beaver ecology!

BWG: What were the core questions your thesis explored? 

Hilary Schultz: Though my thesis focused on answering the overarching question of how beaver dam analogs (BDAs) influence carbon pools, fluxes, and concentrations in three intermountain headwater streams, the most interesting question I sought to answer is how BDAs alter stream channel and riparian soil organic carbon (C) pools and trace gas fluxes from inundated soils.

BWG: Why were you passionate about exploring these questions?

Hilary Schultz: Climate change is significantly impacting water availability in the Western United States, growing the need for effective water resource management strategies. To address declines in water availability, water resource managers have increasingly used BDAs to improve water storage in streams. By mimicing natural beaver dams, BDAs can increase water storage in the stream channel and enhance connectivity between streams and their floodplains, which makes them effective climate adaptation techniques and valuable tools for restoring degraded streams. Managing water quantity using BDAs is expected to influence the cycling and retention of elements in stream networks, which can have positive and negative implications, though their impacts on ecological processes are largely unstudied. To improve best management practices, we need to better understand how changes in water storage resulting from BDAs influence broader ecological components.

BWG: How did you explore these questions? 

Hilary Schultz: BDAs restore stream connectivity with its floodplain by increasing water residence time and facilitating sediment retention in the stream channel. Greater connectivity afforded by BDAs is expected to drive changes in carbon quantities in ways similar to those in active beaver meadows, where beaver engineering causes landscape-scale C storage but also releases trace gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. It is assumed that in BDA-restored streams, C-rich sediment and organic material will accumulate behind the structures in the stream channel and in riparian soils while simultaneously emitting trace gases from the inundated soils. To examine the impacts of BDAs on carbon storage and trace gas emissions in restored streams, we measured organic C pools and riparian soil CO2 and CH4 fluxes in three BDA-treated headwater streams in Summer 2021, two years after restoration occurred in 2019. In the fall of 2019, researchers from the University of Montana - in collaboration with the Lolo National Forest, Clark Fork Coalition, and Nature Conservancy - installed BDAs on three impaired headwater streams. The broader focus of this collaborative restoration project was to assess the influences of BDAs on aquatic ecosystems by examining fish passage and movement, water temperature, groundwater recharge, and changes in aquatic invertebrate communities in addition to C storage and trace gas emissions.

At each of the three headwater streams, we took measurements in stream segments treated with BDAs and compared the measurements to those taken in an upstream, unrestored stream segment in Summer 2021. For C pools, we sampled accumulated sediments within the stream channel and collected riparian soil cores along each stream. To investigate the potential for BDAs to affect trace gas emissions from riparian soils, we measured the loss of CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere and controls on soil gas fluxes like soil moisture and temperature.

BWG: What conclusions did you reach? 

Hilary Schultz: Although there was strong evidence that BDA-restored stream segments stored, on average, 3-fold more C in the stream channel, there were no clear effects of BDAs on soil carbon and trace gas fluxes. Given that our study was conducted on three streams that shared various characteristics, it is important to avoid broad generalizations about the impacts of this restoration tool on carbon. The three restored streams were similar in stream size and gradient, with relatively the same number of BDAs installed using the same construction materials. It may be that the impacts we observed on C storage and trace gas emissions may differ from other BDA restoration projects that use a diverse array of construction materials and vary extensively in their scale and the ecosystems in which they are constructed. Furthermore, we conducted research just two years post-restoration, and as the time since restoration increases, we might expect larger differences in C quantities to emerge. This study showed increased C storage in the stream channel but did not find strong evidence of increased trace gas emissions, suggesting that in the short term, the benefits of BDAs are positive at the ecosystem level. However, long-term monitoring of BDA-restored streams that differ in their stream and dam complex characteristics could provide insights into how the effects of BDAs on carbon biogeochemistry develop over time. Research addressing these existing knowledge gaps could allow us to generalize the effects of BDAs on ecosystem processes, thereby providing scientific insights that better inform water resource management and restoration practitioners.

BWG: Did you leave this project with new questions that you want to explore in the next phase of your life? (note: either related to the research, or personally/professionally in your next steps, etc.)

Hilary Schultz: Yes, I would like to better understand how BDAs alter the concentration and character of other elements, such as nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorous), major elements (e.g., Ca, Mg, Na, K, S), and trace elements (e.g., iron, manganese, copper, lead). I also think it is important to consider how the size of the BDA complex footprint (i.e., the area influenced by restoration) influences the magnitude of change in the concentration and character of other elements.  

BWG: For researchers who are keen to contribute to science in the multi-faceted realm of beaver ecology, what advice would you have on crafting good questions?

Hilary Schultz: Collaborate with resource managers and restoration practitioners to bridge scientific inquiry and practical application, and identify the knowledge gaps. By jointly identifying knowledge gaps, we can advance academic understanding while also informing conservation and management efforts.

Outreach Events with the Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Project

Elissa Chott, Clark Fork Coalition

Please see flyers for date, time, and location details!

As the beavers grow active preparing their shelters, dams, and caches for the coming deep freeze, the Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Project has been out there to showcase their good work. With partners from Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks (FWP), Larch Outdoor Education, and the Camp Paxson Preservation Project, Elissa Chott of the Clark Fork Coalition is sharing the wonders of beaver ecology and her work leading the Montana Beaver Conflict Resolution Project in FWP Region 2. Please come out to join Elissa at one of the remaining events!