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Beavers promote calicioid diversity in boreal forest landscapes

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Abstract

Beavers are ecosystem engineers that modify and maintain a range of special habitat types in boreal forests. They also produce large quantities of deadwood that provide substrate for many lignicolous organisms such as calicioid fungi (Ascomycota). We studied how calicioid diversity differed between boreal riparian forests with and without beaver activity. The results show that calicioid diversity were significantly higher at beaver sites compared to the other two forest site types studied. The large quantity and diverse forms of deadwood produced by beavers clearly promotes calicioid diversity in the boreal landscape. The specific lighting and humidity conditions within beaver wetlands could be the reason why they promote the success of certain calicioid species.

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Acknowledgements

Funding was kindly provided by the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation. Special thanks to Stella Thompson for grammatical corrections. Anonymous referees are thanked for their comments on the manuscript.

Funding

MV was funded by the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation during the study (20150065; 201400098; 201300039). The foundation did not have a role in the formulation of the study design, or in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of the data. They additionally did not influence the writing of the report, or the decision to submit our paper for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O.Box 27, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Mia Vehkaoja & Petri Nummi

  2. Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, P.O.Box 65, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Jouko Rikkinen

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  1. Mia Vehkaoja
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  2. Petri Nummi
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  3. Jouko Rikkinen
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Correspondence to Mia Vehkaoja.

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Communicated by David Hawksworth.

This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Forest and plantation biodiversity.

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Vehkaoja, M., Nummi, P. & Rikkinen, J. Beavers promote calicioid diversity in boreal forest landscapes. Biodivers Conserv 26, 579–591 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1259-7

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