Waiting on a mule deer crossing…
Beavers are ecological engineers, creating a variety of habitats within aquatic ecosystems by constructing dams and ponds. As beaver ponds age, they accumulate sediment and become more wetland-like. This leads to ponds of different ages having different characteristics. These differences will influence what types of aquatic invertebrates will inhabit these ponds, and potentially what kind of prey trout are foraging for. We plan to survey three newer beaver ponds and four older beaver ponds on tributaries to the East River in the Gothic Corridor to assess the aquatic invertebrate community composition and taxa richness. We will follow aquatic invertebrate sampling with catch-and-release angling to obtain fish diet samples to determine if trout are foraging in beaver ponds of different ages. Learning more about the biodiversity associated with successional stages of beaver ponds can inform evaluation criteria for restoration using beaver or beaver dam analogues and improve our understanding of beavers? role in the ecosystem for land management planning.