In Fire-Stricken California, Beavers Hold the Line
What do beavers have to do with wildfires? Jessie Moravek knows.
Ten years ago, Jessie Moravek came to the Marine Biological Laboratory as a student in the undergraduate Semester in Environmental Science (SES). This spring, she returned to Woods Hole to speak at the Ecosystems Center’s 50th Anniversary Symposium. On both occasions, Moravek focused on beavers.
As an SES student, Moravek’s final project explored food webs in and around beaver dams. After a few years in freshwater ecology research, her career circled back to beavers. Now, Moravek is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota studying how beavers work as ecosystem engineers and protect landscapes from wildfires.
Moravek works with Dr. Emily Fairfax in the Fairfax Beaver Lab, and the group analyzes how beaver dams slow water movement, renourishing the floodplain and activating a riverside ecosystem [of vegetation] that dwindles if dry for too long. Beavers also build canals to travel, which act as watering channels for river vegetation —a natural irrigation system that keeps the environment damp. That expert engineering makes ecosystems more fire resistant.
“With beavers around, riparian vegetation stays wet and green and healthy even through a prolonged dry period,” said Moravek. “It’s a lot harder to set green, wet, healthy stuff on fire than it is to set dry, crispy stuff on fire.”
In the 1600s, beavers were everywhere, Moravek said in her talk. But the fur trade wiped out nearly 90 percent of the population, leaving a small number to manage the heavy workload of engineering watersheds all over North America.
Because of climate change, modern wildfires burn bigger, hotter, and more frequently. So even ecosystems that have evolved to withstand fire are now struggling to regenerate in its wake. Now, researchers are generating interest in beaver conservation and reintroduction to create more fire-resistant landscapes.
Moravek is partnering with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to locate where beavers are building dams in California. They use satellite imagery and a machine learning algorithm developed by Google to find the current beaver dams across the vast California landscape. Then, they use mathematical models to decide where beaver introductions would be the most effective.
Moravek credits SES for introducing her to ecology. “We spent every day learning from leaders in the field and spending time in the ecosystems we were studying,” she said.
Her first foray into mathematical modeling was also during the SES program. “I felt very supported as I learned how to be comfortable around models and statistics, which is a skill I use every day as an ecologist,” she said.
Moravek is one of many young scientists who can always call Woods Hole home.
“Connections with students, staff, and faculty from SES have been critical to my career,” said Moravek. “What I learned in Woods Hole has been foundational for the work I do now.”
Watch the Ecosystems Anniversary Symposium recording here.