Gophers dropped near Mt St. Helens for one day cause a gigantic bloom of plant life 40 years later
In 1982, two years after the Mt. St. Helens volcanic eruption, scientists decided to do an experiment: They dropped six gophers into one meter square enclosures near the eruption with the hope the animals’ digging for one day would bring good soil close enough to the surface to encourage the return of plant life.
The results forty-plus years later:
Six years after their trip, there were over 40,000 plants thriving where the gophers had gotten to work, while the surrounding land remained, for the most part, barren. Studying the area over 40 years later, the team found they had left one hell of a legacy. “Plots with historic gopher activity harbored more diverse bacterial and fungal communities than the surrounding old-growth forests,” the team explained. “We also found more diverse fungal communities in these long-term lupine gopher plots than in forests that were historically clearcut, prior to the 1980 eruption, nearby at Bear Meadow.”
“In the 1980s, we were just testing the short-term reaction,” Allen added. “Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see a residual effect 40 years later?”
You can read the published paper here. It appears the gophers’ action activated the microbiological life in the soil, which in turn made it easier for plant life to return.
The potential benefits of this research is gigantic, especially in areas that have been devastated by any number of natural and man made disasters.
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In 1982, two years after the Mt. St. Helens volcanic eruption, scientists decided to do an experiment: They dropped six gophers into one meter square enclosures near the eruption with the hope the animals’ digging for one day would bring good soil close enough to the surface to encourage the return of plant life.
The results forty-plus years later:
Six years after their trip, there were over 40,000 plants thriving where the gophers had gotten to work, while the surrounding land remained, for the most part, barren. Studying the area over 40 years later, the team found they had left one hell of a legacy. “Plots with historic gopher activity harbored more diverse bacterial and fungal communities than the surrounding old-growth forests,” the team explained. “We also found more diverse fungal communities in these long-term lupine gopher plots than in forests that were historically clearcut, prior to the 1980 eruption, nearby at Bear Meadow.”
“In the 1980s, we were just testing the short-term reaction,” Allen added. “Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see a residual effect 40 years later?”
You can read the published paper here. It appears the gophers’ action activated the microbiological life in the soil, which in turn made it easier for plant life to return.
The potential benefits of this research is gigantic, especially in areas that have been devastated by any number of natural and man made disasters.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
It would seem the Earth is not as fragile as the green meanies would suggest.
I just wish it had been clear cut just before the eruption.
Then it’s just stumps that get wiped out.
The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes at Katmai dissolved iron skillets!
”It would seem the Earth is not as fragile as the green meanies would suggest.”
It always astonishes me when an environmentalist seriously claims that an ecosystem that’s been stable for thousands of years is dominated by positive feedback loops.
In this case you see that it only takes a small disturbance to push the site back toward its original state before the catastrophe — a variation of regression to the mean.
Glad they did not drop the gophers in my area. We have enough of a problem with rodent control as it is!
Is this species of gopher the same one Bill Murray found at Bushwood Country Club, a few years earlier?
When I get a couple feet of volcanic ash deposited on my property, then I’ll be glad to have the gophers. Until then, not so much.
Did they catch the gophers afterwards? Or did they have to play Whack a Mole?
Andi: Based on my quick reading of the paper (which I link to), the gophers were brought to enclosed areas, left there for one day, and then captured and returned to their original habitat.