Our team won a grant that to study wolf-beaver interactions over the next three years (2024-2027). The aim of the project is to understand how wolf risk and human activities shape beaver behaviour, and in turn their impacts on woody tree communities.
The 1 062 124 PLN in funding from the Polish National Science Centre awarded to myself and the Mammal Research Institute in Białowieża will pay for research equipment, field work and salaries. I will be the principal investigator.
The field work will work will be carried out at two sites, one in Poland, Białowieża Forest, and one in the Netherlands, near Groningen. The former hosts wolves, and the latter does not. By comparing the data collected at sites with and without wolves, we will be able to determine the role of the wolf in curtailing beaver distributions, foraging behaviour and ecological impacts. The field work in the Netherlands will be part of a 6-month fellowship hosted by the University of Groningen.
In recent years the landscape of fear has been a hot topic in ecology, with studies suggesting the fear inspired by large carnivores can suppress the behaviour and ecological impacts of ungulates and medium sized carnivores. Here we aim to extend this framework to the beaver, which is an important prey species for the wolf.
The project aims to reveal whether the wolf excludes the beaver, and its ecological impacts and conflicts from parts of our landscapes, and whether humans are reducing these effects of the wolf.
This knowledge will pave the way for better informed management of wolves, beavers and riparian landscapes, and help us to fine-tune wolf and beaver ecological functionality and potentially mitigate beaver conflicts where desired.
As both species are often heralded as saviours of biodiversity, this knowledge is urgently needed to predict the ecological effects of the ongoing wolf and beaver recolonisations of Europe’s human dominated landscapes.
You can read more about the project in this PDF (in English and Polish).