Smokey the Beaver: beaver-dammed riparian corridors stay green during wildfire throughout the western United States.

Emily Fairfax, Andrew Whittle

Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America 2020 Dec

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Beaver dams are gaining popularity as a low-tech, low-cost strategy to build climate resiliency at the landscape scale. They slow and store water that can be accessed by riparian vegetation during dry periods, effectively protecting riparian ecosystems from droughts. Whether or not this protection extends to wildfire has been discussed anecdotally but has not been examined in a scientific context. We used remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data to compare riparian vegetation greenness in areas with and without beaver damming during wildfire. We include data from five large wildfires of varying burn severity and dominant landcover settings in the western United States in our analysis. We found that beaver-dammed riparian corridors are relatively unaffected by wildfire when compared to similar riparian corridors without beaver damming. On average, the decrease in NDVI during fire in areas without beaver is 3.05 times as large as it is in areas with beaver. However, plant greenness rebounded in the year after wildfire regardless of beaver activity. Thus, we conclude that, while beaver activity does not necessarily play a role in riparian vegetation post-fire resilience, it does play a significant role in riparian vegetation fire resistance and refugia creation. © 2020 by the Ecological Society of America.

Citation

Emily Fairfax, Andrew Whittle. Smokey the Beaver: beaver-dammed riparian corridors stay green during wildfire throughout the western United States. Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America. 2020 Dec;30(8):e02225