Not long after the eruption, a few gophers took a very strange day trip.
I am absolutely fascinated by the ecological recovery of the immediate blast zone around Mt. St. Helens. It was wiped clean of almost all life during the 1980 eruption, and in the aftermath it was decided that this area would be allowed to recover on its own, rather than being deliberately replanted by timber companies with a monoculture of Douglas fir, or by conservationists with a biodiverse array of native plants. This means the area is giving scientists an unprecedented close-up look at how an ecosystem recovers from such a massive natural disturbance.
This isn't to say there haven't been a few nudges by human activity. Rumor has it that local fishing clubs sneaked up to Spirit Lake and illegally stocked it with trout, though I've also heard claims that they arrived from a nearby stream, possibly originating from the higher elevation St. Helens Lake (which may itself have been restocked by humans.)
But the single day--two years after the eruption--that a batch of northern pocket gophers spent on the mountain made a big difference in the recovery of plant communities. (By the way, the picture in the article appears to be a ground squirrel, not a gopher.) Over forty years after their sojourn, the sites they were temporarily introduced to show much better plant growth due to the mixing of the soil microbiome, to include mycorrhizal fungi, bacteria, and other microbes. This microbial jump-start was caused by the gophers' digging, demonstrating why fossorial (burrowing) animals are so important to ecosystems. Without them, soil microbial communities can stagnate, and in the case of areas damaged by massive disasters, a lack of fossorial species can make recovery take much longer.
Speaking of disasters, scientists also found that forests that had been clearcut prior to the eruption had poorer, less diverse microbial communities than areas that had been more mature or old-growth forests, even when both areas were given the gopher treatment. This is yet more evidence that clearcutting forests is terrible for local ecology, because it not only removes entire ecosystems above ground, but below ground as well. And it shows that mature and old-growth forests are better equipped to weather disasters, with their higher biodiversity overall.
If we've learned anything ecologically from the 1980 eruption, it's that nature is incredibly resilient if we just give it the space to recover. The problem is that we keep poking at the wounds we create, not allowing them to heal over properly. By using more sustainable forestry practices, using resources more wisely, and preserving mature and old-growth forests, we increase the likelihood that the deeply intertwined life-support systems the planet provides (and which we, and all life, rely on) will remain functional in spite of our efforts to tear them apart in the name of resource extraction.
