The Beaver Ecohydrology Lab's research is organized across a set of field sites that function as natural laboratories spanning major environmental gradients. These sites allow us to investigate how beaver-driven hydrological and ecological processes emerge, scale, and reorganize under contrasting conditions. 

In the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, we are studying the rapid expansion of beavers into Arctic drainage systems and the ecological transformations that follow. This new research focuses on how beaver ecosystem engineering influences biodiversity across terrestrial, semi-aquatic, and aquatic habitats, using a combination of wildlife camera networks and environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling alongside complementary ecohydrological measurements. These approaches are allowing us to assess how beaver-created habitat heterogeneity shapes species presence, movement, and community structure in rapidly changing northern environments. Included in the research is an applied component that explores the utility of select beaver management approaches in helping to mitigate some of the unwanted effects of beavers in sensitive permafrost terrain. Working with local partners, particularly the Imaryuk Monitors (the Indigenous guardians of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region), this research links ecosystem processes with community-relevant concerns about landscape change in northern regions undergoing ongoing regime shifts. 

Besnard Lake is a large boreal lake system where repeated wildfire has reshaped shoreline forests and riparian habitats over the past decade. Our research explores how beaver populations respond to this shifting mosaic of disturbance, with a focus on how fire history and the persistence of riparian vegetation influence lodge occupancy and lake-to-lake hydrological and ecological connectivity. The lake is about 75 km west of La Ronge.