Small mammal assemblage in beaver-modified habitats
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Small mammal assemblage in beaver-modified habitats Janne Sundell 1
&
Wenfei Liao 2
&
Petri Nummi 3
Received: 21 July 2020 / Accepted: 28 October 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract One of the less studied positive interactions among organisms is facilitation. Facilitation may have significant impact on diversity of species especially in low productive environments. We studied the effects of well-known facilitator and ecosystem engineer, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis), on small mammal assemblages in the boreal zone. The small mammals, namely voles, mice, and shrews, were trapped over 2 years in ten beaver-modified habitats and in ten control sites. Contrary to our expectations, we did not observe any differences between species or individual numbers between beaver-modified and control sites. However, there were differences in species composition between sites; grass-eating field voles (Microtus agrestis) and invertebrate-eating shrews (Sorex araneus, Neomys fodiens) tended to be more common in beaver sites while forest-dwelling wood lemmings (Myopus schisticolor) and yellow-necked mice (Apodemus flavicollis) were only captured in control sites. The most common species in both habitats was the bank vole (Myodes glareolus), which is a generalist in its habitat requirements. The bank vole’s population structures were similar between the two habitat types. The actions of beavers in water bodies within boreal forests seem to have no effect on the small mammal diversity and their numbers at the regional scale but may have positive effect on them at the larger landscape level as beavers are increasing the overall habitat diversity in the landscape. Keywords Biodiversity . Castor . Ecosystem engineer . Facilitation . Wetland
Introduction Species interactions are important in determining the local species composition. Both negative and positive interactions are involved. While negative interactions, such as predation and competition, are more commonly investigated, positive ones can be equally essential in structuring communities (Bruno et al. 2003). One form of positive relationships is facilitation. Actions or just presence of a facilitator allows other Communicated by: Jan M. Wójcik Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-02000545-4. * Janne Sundell [email protected] 1
Lammi Biological Station, University of Helsinki, Pääjärventie 320, FI-16900 Lammi, Finland
2
Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 65, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland
3
Department of Forestry, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 27, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland
species to thrive. A common way of a facilitator to facilitate other species is modification of otherwise unsuitable abiotic and/or biotic environment so that it will become suitable for others to thrive (Stachowicz 2001). This is evident in many successional colonisation events where previous settlers modify habitat to be suitable fo
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