Size matters: When resource accessibility by ecosystem engineering elicits wood‐boring beetle demographic responses

• Published in: Ecology and evolution 2021-01, Vol.11 (2), p.784-795
• Main Authors: Mourant, Alexandre, Lecomte, Nicolas, Moreau, Gaétan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abundance; Accessibility; Age; Aquatic mammals; Beetles; Canadian beaver; Castor canadensis; Coleoptera; Coupling; Dams; Dead wood; Debris; Demographics; Disturbances; Ecosystem management; Ecosystems; Engineering; Engineers; Environmental engineering; Floods; food web; Forest ecosystems; Geographical distribution; Geographical locations; Habitats; Hypotheses; National parks; Natural disturbance; Original Research; Physical characteristics; Physical properties; Ponds; resource pulse; Saproxylic beetles; Species richness; Terrestrial ecosystems; Tunnels; Watercourses; Wood
• ISSN: 2045-7758; 2045-7758
• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.7079

Episodic natural disturbances play a key role in ecosystem renewal, and ecological engineering could do so by transforming resource accessibility. While such coupling creates nontrophic and lasting interactions between resource consumers and ecosystem engineers, it is unclear how large the disturbance must be to sustain such coupling. Natural disturbances that occur from the ecological engineering by the Canadian beaver (Castor canadensis) modulate deadwood dynamics in many forest ecosystems. Relying on such episodes of fresh woody debris, primary wood‐boring beetles, organisms that dig tunnels into those debris for reproduction, act as important deadwood decomposers in the ecosystem. Here, we investigate how the age and size of beaver disturbances act as predictors for primary wood‐boring beetle abundance and species richness around beaver‐altered habitat patches. To do so, we sampled beetles around 16 beaver‐disturbed and unaltered watercourses within the Kouchibouguac National Park (Canada) and modeled beetle demographic responses to site conditions and their physical characteristics, distance from the watercourse, deadwood biomass, and the geographical location of the sites. Our results indicate that the size of the disturbance is positively associated with beetle abundance, which highlights unique deadwood dynamics inherent to large beaver ponds. The role of beavers in forest ecosystems by reaching multiple taxa at multiple spatiotemporal scales further exemplifies the need to study nontrophic interactions and their complex consequences in ecosystem management. The size of the disturbance created by beavers was positively associated with primary wood‐boring beetle abundance around beaver‐altered habitat patches. This shows that ecological engineering transforms resource accessibility, creating nontrophic and lasting interactions between resource consumers and ecosystem engineers.