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Beaver Scent Marking and Population Density — 5 Comments

  1. Red maple is one of the least preferred foods for beavers. Red maple is a preferred food for deer and moose. Is this difference in selection due to nutrient content or some other characteristic of red maple, or was it a part of evolution to reduce species competition for red maple?

    • Hi Bob, I think it has to do with the plant’s defense compounds and the herbivore’s ability to detoxify them. Plants and herbivores are in an evolutionary arms race: Plants evolve defenses against herbivory, such as unpalatable or toxic compounds. Herbivores then evolve methods of tolerating or detoxifying these compounds, and then the plant evolves a new defense…and on and on it goes. Different herbivores have evolved different ways of dealing with different plant defenses, and the result is that different herbivores have different plant preferences. Reducing species competition for specific plants is an interesting thought and could very well figure in to the evolutionary process. For example, porcupines and beavers overlap in range and habitat. Beavers don’t eat much hemlock, which leaves an abundance of hemlock trees around some beaver ponds. That would create an evolutionary incentive, so to speak, for porcupines to evolved the ability to consume hemlock. Just speculation…

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  3. It is so interesting to me reading about beaver in the Eastern US. Here I am in Colorado, learning about beavers, which are not common here. There are no red maples or hemlock trees. All the beaver (ONE only so far) is chewing, is willows and cottonwoods. Thank you, Janet for this blog. Appreciate the info. Will now go looking for more mounds.

    • Hi Ulli, I’m in the same boat trying to find beaver sign in Montana, where they are much less common than in Mass. We do find fresh beaver sign from time to time but we’ve found only 1 scent mound and it was very small. It looks to me like beavers have trouble hanging on – they show, and then they’re gone. I’m not sure how heavily they are trapped, which could certainly be a factor, but we also have wolves, grizzlies, mtn lions, and wolverines, all of which hunt beavers. BTW, cottonwoods and willows are great beaver foods.

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