This is a picture of a beaver dam. A beaver dam shows how a beaver acts as a keystone species. A keystone species is a species on which an ecosystem depends on significantly. A beaver is an keystone species because it turns a stream ecosystem into what is known as a "beaver pond" - a marsh ecosystem - by building a dam. If the beaver were to disappear (the keystone species removed), the dam and marsh ecosystem would collapse. In this way a beaver is an "ecosystem engineer", a special type of keystone species.
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