{"id":418,"date":"2025-08-06T14:09:57","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T14:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418"},"modified":"2025-08-06T14:09:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T14:09:58","slug":"beavers-and-their-ponds-are-moving-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418","title":{"rendered":"Beavers and their ponds are moving north"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The spread of the beaver (<em>Castor canadensis<\/em>) into the Arctic tundra is a textbook example of the process of borealization. A new study by Ken Tape at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and James Speed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and a member of the NordBorN network, shows how temperature is a crucial factor determining the distribution of beavers and their impact on the whole ecosystem through dam building across the Alaskan tundra. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Temperature drives an increase in suitable habitat for beavers from 15 000 km<sup>2<\/sup> in the early 20<sup>th<\/sup> century, to 30\u00a0000 km<sup>2<\/sup> at present, while future climatic warming is projected to increase the potential suitable habitat to between 100\u00a0000 and 150\u00a0000 km<sup>2<\/sup> by 2090. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such a dramatic increase in distribution of an ecosystem engineering species is likely to have dramatic impacts on the future state of the tundra.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The paper was recently published in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1088\/1748-9326\/adeba2\">Environmental Research Letters<\/a><\/em>, and has been featured in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/beavers-are-poised-invade-and-radically-remake-arctic\">Science<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Reference: <\/strong>Tape, K. D., &amp; Speed, J. D. (2025). Predicted expansion of beaver pond distribution in Arctic Alaska, 1910\u20132090.\u00a0<em>Environmental Research Letters<\/em>,\u00a0<em>20<\/em>(9), 094009. <a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1088\/1748-9326\/adeba2\">10.1088\/1748-9326\/adeba2<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>The picture shows a beaver modified habitat in Alaska (photo: Ken Tape, University of Alaska Fairbanks)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The spread of the beaver (Castor canadensis) into the Arctic tundra is a textbook example of the process of borealization. A new study by Ken Tape at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and James Speed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and a member of the NordBorN network, shows how temperature is a &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Beavers and their ponds are moving north&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nordborn-publications"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Beavers and their ponds are moving north - The Nordic Borealization Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beavers and their ponds are moving north - The Nordic Borealization Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The spread of the beaver (Castor canadensis) into the Arctic tundra is a textbook example of the process of borealization. A new study by Ken Tape at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and James Speed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and a member of the NordBorN network, shows how temperature is a &hellip; Continue reading &quot;Beavers and their ponds are moving north&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Nordic Borealization Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-06T14:09:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-06T14:09:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/beaver_habitat.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"602\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"398\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Isabel Barrio\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Isabel Barrio\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418\",\"name\":\"Beavers and their ponds are moving north - The Nordic Borealization Network\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-08-06T14:09:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-06T14:09:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/#\/schema\/person\/556ea4835cdda9b6be16f968eae6dffe\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Beavers and their ponds are moving north\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/\",\"name\":\"The Nordic Borealization Network\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/#\/schema\/person\/556ea4835cdda9b6be16f968eae6dffe\",\"name\":\"Isabel Barrio\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eb1f768e1f557e7943d61e946f88b5e9f563aeb8e5f04c96f3bdd084a767cdb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eb1f768e1f557e7943d61e946f88b5e9f563aeb8e5f04c96f3bdd084a767cdb6?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Isabel Barrio\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?author=2\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Beavers and their ponds are moving north - The Nordic Borealization Network","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nordborn.lbhi.is\/?p=418","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Beavers and their ponds are moving north - The Nordic Borealization Network","og_description":"The spread of the beaver (Castor canadensis) into the Arctic tundra is a textbook example of the process of borealization. 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