Unveiling the Services of Sea Beavers, Animals Against Climate Change

These hairy mammals not only protect the seaweed ecosystem, they can also benefit from the seagrass. In this zone, many beavers eat crabs. When the number of crabs decreases, the animals that are food for crabs such as snails and snails can grow. They do not eat seagrass, instead they erode the algae growing on the grass and allow the seagrass to absorb more sunlight in order to grow more efficiently.

“They have a tiny radula that gently scrapes off the seagrass and removes all the epiphytes that grow on it. So basically protecting the seagrass.” said Hughes.

In California’s Elkhorn Slough estuary, seagrass almost disappeared in the early 1980s due to declining water quality, and nutrient pollution from livestock farming increased algae growth thereby suppressing the seagrass. But since the beaver’s return, the seagrass has grown more than sixfold. In both of these ecosystems, sea otters may have the added benefit of storing carbon.

In 2012, a team of ecologists published a study on the carbon sequestration potential of sea otters in the North Pacific between the Aleutian islands and Vancouver Island. Using data on seaweed growth and density at sites with and without beavers, they found that the presence of sea otters across a total 51,551 square kilometer coral reef habitat, was able to store 4.4 to 8.7 million tonnes of carbon compared to otherwise. there are beavers in the area.

Seaweeds are considered a possible climate solution, as they can grow very fast up to 60cm in a day. Thus, they can pull carbon from the atmosphere faster than slower-growing plants. “A seaweed leaf that sinks to the ocean floor and decomposes, that carbon may be trapped in sediments for thousands of years, even millions of years,” Pearson said.

Carbon that is prevented from entering the atmosphere for 100 years or more could be the key to tackling the climate crisis. However, the amount of carbon from the sequestered seaweed is still unknown.

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