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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.