Beavers are the undiscovered engineers of the boreal forest

By Miguel Montoro Girona, Professeur d'écologie forestière, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
Guillaume Grosbois, Professeur Écologie Aquatique, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
Mélanie Arsenault, Étudiante à la maîtrise en écologie, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)

While hiking near a river, chances are you’ve seen the tell-tale tree stumps with cone-shaped tips. Who carves these? A large, flat-tailed rodent called the Canadian beaver (Castor canadensis), who also happens to be the emblem of our country.

This article is part of La Conversation Canada’s series The boreal forest: A thousand secrets, a thousand dangers

La Conversation Canada invites you to take a virtual walk in the heart of the…

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~	South Africa’s youth are a generation lost under democracy – study

~	Why reading and writing poems shouldn’t be considered a luxury in troubling times

~	A Hong Kong Facebook group on shop closure strives to survive allegations of inciting discontent

~	Vaping now more common than smoking among young people – and the risks go beyond lung and brain damage

~	Burkina Faso: Army Massacres 223 Villagers

~	Lebanon: Stepped-Up Repression of Syrians

~	Africa’s High Teenage Pregnancy Rate Demands Strong Response

~	Inflation is slowly falling while student debt is climbing: 6 graphs that explain the CPI

~	‘It bucked our lads up wonderfully’: the lightning-quick battle that marked the birth of the US-Australia military alliance

~	If plastic manufacturing goes up 10%, plastic pollution goes up 10% – and we’re set for a huge surge in production