Program Item Details
TITLE: Dr. Suzanne Bayley, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta
SUBJECT: #70 SFM Conference: Beavers and Wetlands
SYNOPSIS: Lakes and bogs are critical parts of the boreal ecosystem. In a study for the SFM Network, Dr. Suzanne Bayley set out to establish baseline data on water quality in wetlands across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. To her surprise, she discovered beavers may actually play an important role in improving water quality. One more reason not to blow up beaver dams.
AUDIO: Download Audio (mp3 format)
TRANSCRIPT:
Intro: Among the many presenters at the Sustainable Forest Management Conference in Edmonton was Dr. Suzanne Bayley, a professor in biological sciences at the University of Alberta. Suzanne's research keeps her busy with the vast peatlands in the boreal forest. With the increased industrial activity in the north, both from forestry and oilsands development, fens, bogs, streams and rivers that make up these boreal wetlands could very well be at risk. So Suzanne and her group set out to determine an ecological baseline on water quality. And as she reported to the Conference, the preliminary results were quite surprising.
Dr. Suzanne Bayley
SB: We're looking to see what causes, or what is the natural quality, how rich are these wetlands naturally, and then trying infer what might be happening with timber harvesting. But we have understand the natural systems before we can understand what might occur.
CC: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE THINGS YOU ARE FINDING? ARE THEY PRETTY MUCH THE SAME ALL OVER THE PLACE OR DO VARY QUITE A BIT?
SB: What we're finding is there's quite a lot of variation all the way from Manitoba, across Saskatchewan here to Alberta. With some types being naturally very very rich and almost pea green in colour, and really people might say the water quality is terrible. But that's quite natural. While other areas are absolutely spectacular, with lots of vegetation and lots of waterfowl. And so we're trying to understand what's causing these patterns.
CC: DO YOU HAVE ANY INDICATIONS? WHAT IS YOUR DATA SHOWING RIGHT NOW?
SB: Well, we think it might have to do with the amount of rainfall. It might have to do with the amount of phospherous in the soils, so we don't understand the patterns yet but we're starting to get some ideas. And one of the things we're also starting to see is that maybe beaver can play an official role in improving water quality.
CC: NOW HOW IS THAT?
SB: Well I think what it is, is the beaver, if you're on say a stream, the beaver have sequential dams on stream, and as sediment and turbidity and nutrients come in, these are then retained and not swept right back down to bigger lakes and rivers. On the small isolated ponds that we're looking at, we're not actually sure why we've found quality associated with beaver lodges or, these are not river systems, and yet we're finding improved water quality. So we don't understand that yet.
CC: WELL THAT MUST HAVE BEEN QUITE A SURPRISE TO YOU?
SB: Yes, that actually was a surprise. And we're kind of hoping that timber companies will be interested in this, and interested maintaining their beaver to promote this, if in fact, this goes across a large number of areas. We've only seen it right now in say, one, actually two Alberta areas. So I haven't looked at the Saskatchewan data yet.
CC: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE THINGS WOULD ACTUALLY BE IN THE WATER THAT ACCOUNT FOR THE VARIATIONS?
SB: Well, the organic matter in the water, the amount of light there is in the water, whether the plants are there as sort of vegetation, as sort of aquatic plants or seaweeds as people sometimes call them, or whether it is algae. And so all of these then would determine what the chemistry of the water is and how much, how dense the vegetation would grow. And of course that then affects the waterfowl that would be coming in there and how heavily they are used.
CC: COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT A BIT FURTHER?
SB: It seems that waterfowl like systems that are moderately rich. They don't like really nutrient poor systems, and they don't like really as much the hyper rich ones. So they seem to be liking those systems that are fairly rich. And we have quite a lot of them in boreal Alberta. And since we're losing all our Prairie wetlands due to drought, these wetlands up north we see are going to be increasingly important.
CC: THIS SOUNDS LIKE ITS JUST THE BEGINNINGS OF TRYING TO ESTABLISH A BASIS. WHERE DO YOU GO TO FROM HERE?
SB: Well, I'd like to investigate a little bit more this role that these beaver are having in both maintaining water on the land in wetlands and possibly improving water quality out here in this type of system. This very different from eastern Canada and British Columbia. And that may have something to do with that low flushing that we have out here that might be causing these results out here that we're getting.
I think one thing that we have to be very concerned about is this long term drought that we're in that has already dried up most of our prairie wetlands. Our boreal wetlands may be the ones to go in the future. And without those, where are our waterfowl going to be living?
CC: THANK YOU VERY MUCH, SUZANNE.
SB: Thank you.
Dr. Suzanne Bayley is a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta. She presented her findings on water quality and the positive role of beavers to the Sustainable Forest Management Conference in Edmonton.
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