Turkish Journal of Zoology
Abstract
The Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) is a keystone ecosystem engineer whose expanding populations increasingly occupy agricultural landscapes. Hair stable isotope analysis was applied to reconstruct assimilated diet in 56 legally hunted beavers in Lithuania in 2024–2025. Stable carbon isotope values were tightly clustered (–25.53 ± 0.10‰ SE), while those for nitrogen showed greater variability (5.38 ± 0.20‰ SE), indicating limited interindividual dietary differentiation. Generalized linear models revealed no significant effects of sex, year, or month, and age-related differences were limited to the youngest individuals. Comparison with published Polish data showed no significant differences in mean isotope values. Overall, the results indicated a stable assimilated diet at the population level despite documented seasonal and habitat-specific foraging flexibility.
Author ORCID Identifier
LINAS BALČIAUSKAS: 0000-0001-9672-5265
RASA VAITKEVIČIŪTĖ KOKLEVIČIENĖ: 0009-0003-3553-2525
ANDRIUS GARBARAS: 0000-0002-3105-8059
INGA GARBARIENĖ: 0000-0003-2668-7026
LAIMA BALČIAUSKIENĖ: 0000-0002-4641-7675
DOI
10.55730/1300-0179.3271
Keywords
Castor fiber, stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes, hair, dietary stability, agricultural landscapes, Lithuania
First Page
284
Last Page
294
Publisher
The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
BALČIAUSKAS, L, VAITKEVIČIŪTĖ KOKLEVIČIENĖ, R, GARBARAS, A, GARBARIENĖ, I, & BALČIAUSKIENĖ, L (2026). Dietary stability of the Eurasian beaver revealed by hair stable isotopes. Turkish Journal of Zoology 50 (5): 284-294. https://doi.org/10.55730/1300-0179.3271
