On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted, releasing 1.5 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and pyroclastic lava flows that consumed nearly everything within a 230-square-mile radius. Three years later, wildlife experts turned to a team of local collaborators for just 24 hours to accelerate the region’s environmental recovery. But these were gophers, not human volunteers. And while analysis a decade later proved that the rodents are providing ecological benefits to the region, a recent study published in the journal Microbiome frontiershowing that its regional influence is still visible today.
The first phase of the experiment began in 1983. At the time, a team that included Michael Allen, a microbiologist at the University of California, Riverside, flew a helicopter into an area that had been turned into porous pumice by a volcanic eruption. According to UCR profile On Nov. 5, Allen and Utah State University colleague James McMahon then released “several local gophers” into two areas known as Pumice Plains and Bear Meadow. These spaces contained only a few struggling plants, likely sprouting from seeds dropped by birds, but the gophers were free to do what gophers do best, around the clock. was allowed.
[Related: After Mount St. Helens erupted, scientists fought to preserve its devastation.]
“They are often considered pests, but we thought they would take up old soil and move it to the surface, where recovery would occur,” Allen explained. The researchers hope that these animals may be particularly useful in bringing life-sustaining and nourishing microorganisms, such as endosymbiotic rhizobia and mycorrhizal fungi, to the surface.
“With the exception of a few weeds, the roots of most plants cannot efficiently obtain all the nutrients and water they need on their own,” Allen says. “The fungi transport these things to the plants and in exchange receive the carbon they need for their own growth.”
[Related: Underneath Florida pines, gophers are getting weird.]
Their hopes came true. When Allen and McMahon returned six years later, they noted that the rodents had produced about 40,000 healthy plants across Pumice Plain and Bear Meadow, and that the native gopher population had returned. . Meanwhile, nearby gopher-free areas remained largely inhospitable to plants. More than 40 years later, new soil samples taken from the same area still showed a better presence of fungi and bacteria than areas without gophers. The research team, including mycologist Mia Maltz, hopes their work can highlight the importance of connected and resilient natural ecosystems.
“We can’t ignore the interdependence of everything in nature, especially invisible things like microbes and fungi,” Maltz says.
“In the 1980s, we were just experimenting with short-term reactions,” Allen added. “Who would have thought that you could throw a gopher in there for a day and still have an impact 40 years later?”
