Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto Mount St Helens For 1 Day. 40 Years Later, The Effect Is Astonishing

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-21 16:53:04 | Updated at 2024-11-22 00:38:29 8 hours ago

Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto Mount St Helens For 1 Day. 40 Years Later, The Effect Is Astonishing
IFL Science ^ | November 20, 2024 | James Felton

Posted on 11/21/2024 8:18:53 AM PST by Red Badger

Shortly after the devastating eruption, some gophers went on a very confusing day trip.

A member of the gopher recovery team getting to work.

Image credit: Mike Allen/UCR

When Mount St Helens erupted in 1980, the resulting lava, ash, and debris turned the landscape barren for miles around. It was clear the land would take a long time to recover from the eruption. But one team of scientists had an idea about how they could help speed up the process; sending a few gophers there on a day trip.

Plant life struggled to return to the area around Mount St Helens, now under a layer of pumice fragments. While the top layers of soil were destroyed by the eruption and lava flows, the soil underneath could still be rich in bacteria and fungi.

"Soil microorganisms regulate nutrient cycling, interact with many other organisms, and therefore may support successional pathways and complementary ecosystem functions, even in harsh conditions," a team of researchers explained in a new paper on the area's recovery.

"With the exception of a few weeds, there is no way most plant roots are efficient enough to get all the nutrients and water they need by themselves," study co-author, University of California Riverside microbiologist Michael Allen, explained in a statement. "The fungi transport these things to the plant and get carbon they need for their own growth in exchange."

After the eruption, researchers believed that gophers could be ideal for returning it all to the top.

"They're often considered pests, but we thought they would take old soil, move it to the surface, and that would be where recovery would occur," Allen added.

Two years after the eruption of Mount St Helens, local gophers were sent to the area in what must have been quite a confusing day trip, even if the animals were not aware of the news. The gophers were placed in enclosed areas for the experiment and spent their day digging around in the pumice.

Despite only spending one day in the area, the impact they had was remarkable. 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?"

While the gophers should be praised for their unusual part in the story, the real star of the recovery effort are the fungi. After the eruption, scientists worried that nearby pine and spruce forests would take a long time to recover, as the ash covered their needles and led to them falling off. However, this didn't happen, again thanks to fungi.

"These trees have their own mycorrhizal fungi that picked up nutrients from the dropped needles and helped fuel rapid tree regrowth," UCR environmental microbiologist and paper co-author Emma Aronson added. "The trees came back almost immediately in some places. It didn't all die like everyone thought."

Comparing the forest to a nearby forest that had recently been cut, thus being devoid of the layer of needles, they found stark differences.

"There still isn't much of anything growing in the clearcut area," Aronson said. "It was shocking looking at the old growth forest soil and comparing it to the dead area."

The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes.

https://doi.org/10.3389/frmbi.2024.1399416

TOPICS: Gardening; History; Outdoors; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: biology; disasterareas; eruption; forests; fungi; geology; gophers; landrecovery; microbes; microorganisms; mountsthelens; mtsthelens; plants; science; shrooms; soil; soilhealth; terraforming; volcanoes

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1 posted on 11/21/2024 8:18:53 AM PST by Red Badger

To: Red Badger

“And the gopher shall lead you...”

2 posted on 11/21/2024 8:21:19 AM PST by PGR88

To: Red Badger

Made me think of Caddyshack :)

3 posted on 11/21/2024 8:21:39 AM PST by dp0622 (Tried a coup, a fake tax story, tramp slander, Russia nonsense, impeachment and a virus. They lost.)

To: Red Badger

Along the same lines look up the beaver air drop into Idaho.

4 posted on 11/21/2024 8:22:51 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)

To: Red Badger

5 posted on 11/21/2024 8:24:14 AM PST by BigFreakinToad (All she is, is cackles in the wind.)

To: Red Badger

Barren? Wasteland? No life?

Drop a thousand gophers on the Democrat party. Let’s see what happens.

To: dp0622

7 posted on 11/21/2024 8:24:52 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)

To: Red Badger

8 posted on 11/21/2024 8:25:58 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)

To: Harmless Teddy Bear

9 posted on 11/21/2024 8:26:04 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)

To: dfwgator

10 posted on 11/21/2024 8:27:00 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)

To: Red Badger; carlspackler

And you didn’t ping Carl Spackler?

11 posted on 11/21/2024 8:28:50 AM PST by Cletus.D.Yokel (When I say "We" I speak of, -not for-, "We the People")

To: Red Badger

Gophers should only be dropped on the enemy.

12 posted on 11/21/2024 8:28:54 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)

To: BigFreakinToad

13 posted on 11/21/2024 8:29:16 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)

To: Red Badger

14 posted on 11/21/2024 8:29:48 AM PST by BigFreakinToad (All she is, is cackles in the wind.)

To: Cletus.D.Yokel

He hasn’t posted since 2001....................

15 posted on 11/21/2024 8:30:48 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)

To: Cletus.D.Yokel

16 posted on 11/21/2024 8:32:01 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)

To: Red Badger

What tickled me about that story, aside from the fact it worked out so well, is the “test drop” beaver became a little adrenaline junkie and LOVED parachuting.

He holds the world record for air jumps by a beaver.

17 posted on 11/21/2024 8:33:24 AM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)

To: Red Badger

18 posted on 11/21/2024 8:34:19 AM PST by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)

To: Red Badger

“Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto Mount St Helens”

‘With God as my witness...I though Gophers could FLY!’

19 posted on 11/21/2024 8:35:30 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have, 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set.)

To: Red Badger

Whack-A-Mole! Everybody gets a mallet.

20 posted on 11/21/2024 8:37:26 AM PST by lee martell

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