Having pronounced construction instinct and activity, beavers change a lot their aquatic habitats in order to provide foraging pathways protected by water environment and create effective shelters saving them from enemies (mainly wolves and humans) and cold weather during overwintering, giving birth and raising a litter as well as everyday resting.
With respect to semiaquatic mustelids i.e. otter and mink, a question arises do these changes in aquatic habitats bring benefit for them or not? Beavers build a lot of shelters in kinds of burrows and lodges, and such a benefit of better sheltering environment for otter and mink is evident. While investigating the question, we were mainly interested in beaver activity-related increase of water-dwelling prey of otter and mink in aquatic ecosystems and, first of all, in small streams such as small rivers, brooks and drainage canals. Just at small watercourses such an effect of damming by beavers on semiaquatic mustelids may be the most pronounced. By building dams, beavers create ponds; such ponds are gradually eutrophicated and densely overgrown with macrophytes. So, it was essential to get know, such beaver ponds bring benefit in aquatic prey supply for semiaquatic mustelids or not, and if it is, on which stage of the pond eutrophication such benefit is the highest.
Tag: otter
Analysis of predation in vertebrate community
In the period of 1993-2010 I led the Vertebrate Predation Research Group in the same research Institute of zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The group consisted of 3-12 colleagues (including PhD-students and Diploma-students) and was aimed to investigate vertebrate predators, mainly carnivores, but also owls, diurnal raptors and snakes. The studies took place in Paazierre Forest (the northern part of Belarus) and Naliboki Forest (the central-western part of Belarus), i.e. semi-natural terrains with transitional mixed forest within the European Forest zone. Continue reading “Analysis of predation in vertebrate community”
My zoological beginning
I was motivated by wildlife from my childhood that took place in the Haradishcha village nearby Miensk, Belarus. The countryside childhood with still rich wildlife in the village surroundings played an essential role for my further zoological way with a lot of study in the wild. More or less real zoology started for me since 1980, when I was a student of the Belarusian State University in Miensk. At that time I was mostly interested in the Eurasian otter Lutra lutra, minks (Mustela lutreola and Neovison vison) and wolf Canis lupus. Continue reading “My zoological beginning”
Zoology by Vadim Sidorovich 