Riparian ecosystems are of utmost importance for many key ecosystem services, such as nutrient filtering or flood and erosion control. Restoring degraded riverbanks using soil bioengineering techniques initiates secondary succession improving both protection from erosion and riparian ecological functions. These techniques often rely on the settlement of Salicaceae and sometimes Tamaricaceae species that can be strongly impacted by beaver browsing. During the last decade European beaver (Castor fiber) populations have largely grown in France and can thus impact restored riverbanks, leading practitioners to adapt their management strategy. We conducted a study to assess the feeding preference of C. fiber and their browsing spatial pattern in semi natural riverbanks in the French Alps (Isère, France) by measuring browsing impacts along a transect. Our results indicate selective browsing occurrences at two nested spatial scales: firstly, beavers create large preferentially browsed patches (~ 8 m diameter) secondly, at a finer scale within these patches, they demonstrate a selective browsing between plant species. Among the species used in soil bioengineering, Myricaria germanica showed the lower browsing selectivity with only 2.5% of browsing probability while Salix eleagnos and Salix purpurea (10%) and Populus nigra, Salix daphnoides and Salix alba (20%) showed significant higher selectivity by beaver. Our results suggest that within the beaver presence area soil bioengineering techniques should consider adjusting both the composition and the spatial pattern of plant species settlement to mitigate the impacts of beaver on restored riverbanks.

对于许多关键的生态系统服务（例如养分过滤或洪水和侵蚀控制），河岸生态系统至关重要。使用土壤生物工程技术恢复退化的河岸将引发次生演替，从而改善对侵蚀和河岸生态功能的保护。这些技术通常依赖于水杨科和有时的Ta科物种的栖息地，这些物种可能受到海狸浏览的强烈影响。在过去十年中，欧洲海狸（蓖麻纤维）种群在法国大量增长，因此可能影响恢复的河岸，导致从业者适应其管理策略。我们进行了一项研究，以评估C.纤维的喂养偏好通过测量沿样条线的浏览影响，在法国阿尔卑斯山（法国伊泽尔）的半天然河岸中浏览它们的浏览空间格局。我们的结果表明在两个嵌套的空间尺度上发生了选择性浏览：首先，海狸产生了较大的优先浏览斑块（直径约8 m）；其次，在这些斑块内更细的尺度上，它们证明了植物物种之间的选择性浏览。在土壤生物工程中使用的物种中，德国杨梅（Myricaria germanica）的浏览选择性较低，仅为浏览概率的2.5％，而柳柳（Salix eleagnos）和柳柳（Salix purpurea）（10％）和黑杨，柳柳（Salix daphnoides）和柳柳（Salix alba）（20％）表现出较高的选择性。海狸。我们的结果表明，在海狸存在区域内，土壤生物工程技术应考虑调整植物物种沉降的组成和空间格局，以减轻海狸对恢复的河岸的影响。