The American Beaver as a keystone species and there effect on the north american ecosystem - Essay Example

This paper purposes to explore how the animals achieve this great impact. The American Beaver is considered as a keystone species in the North American wetland areas by the ecologists. Keystone species are animals whose activities and abundance determine the integrity of the community and its unaltered persistence through time (Schulze 238). The activities of the American Beaver result to creation of dam and reduction of the flowing speed of streams. Moreover, it results to deposition of sediments on the beds of those streams.

This improves the ecosystem of the fish and other water animals in those streams. Therefore, the activities of these animals improve the living conditions of the other water animals and hence they are keystone species. Moreover, the activities of the American Beaver also have an impact to the animals living in both the riverbanks and those living on the other landscape. This is because these animals have the capability to influence the course of succession, species composition, and structure of plant community (Rosell et al 2).

These animals can change the composition of plant in an area thus bettering the habitant for other animals. Their foraging also clears the land thus making the ecosystem very favorable for the predators. However, they sometimes fall trees that can destroy the ecosystem of the birds. Therefore, the activities of the American Beaver have an influence to the community of the terrestrial animals also and thus it is a keystone species. The American Beavers activities results to felling of trees on streams that block the streams thus converting the flood plains of streams into wetlands.

The activities of these animals have resulted to creation of several wetlands on areas that were previously occupied by flood plains. In other areas, their activities have resulted to expansion of the existing wetlands. This has been mainly through the felling of trees