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Earth Science

How Gophers Restored Plant Life to a Volcano-Ravaged Mountain - in One Day. (phys.org) 53

When a volcano erupted in 1980 about 70 miles from Portland, "lava incinerated anything living for miles around," remembers an announcement from the University of California at Riverside. But "As an experiment, scientists later dropped gophers onto parts of the scorched mountain for only 24 hours.

"The benefits from that single day were undeniable — and still visible 40 years later." Once the blistering blast of ash and debris cooled, scientists theorized that, by digging up beneficial bacteria and fungi, gophers might be able to help regenerate lost plant and animal life on the mountain. Two years after the eruption, they tested this theory. "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," said UC Riverside microbiologist Michael Allen.

They were right. But the scientists did not expect the benefits of this experiment would still be visible in the soil today, in 2024. A paper out this week in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes details an enduring change in the communities of fungi and bacteria where gophers had been, versus nearby land where they were never introduced. "In the 1980s, we were just testing the short-term reaction," said Allen. "Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see a residual effect 40 years later?"

In 1983, Allen and Utah State University's James McMahon helicoptered to an area where the lava had turned the land into collapsing slabs of porous pumice. At that time, there were only about a dozen plants that had learned to live on these slabs. A few seeds had been dropped by birds, but the resulting seedlings struggled. After scientists dropped a few local gophers on two pumice plots for a day, the land exploded again with new life. Six years post-experiment, there were 40,000 plants thriving on the gopher plots. The untouched land remained mostly barren.
All this was possible because of what isn't always visible to the naked eye. Mycorrhizal fungi penetrate into plant root cells to exchange nutrients and resources. They can help protect plants from pathogens in the soil, and critically, by providing nutrients in barren places, they help plants establish themselves and survive.

Mycorrhizal fungi also helped an old-growth forest survive, accoridng to the researchers — even after volcano ash had caused them to drop their needles...

How Gophers Restored Plant Life to a Volcano-Ravaged Mountain - in One Day.

Comments Filter:
  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday November 10, 2024 @06:51PM (#64935617)

    It seems a little weird to use Portland as a point of reference when talking about a well-known mountain in my state. But admittedly it's technically correct (the best kind of correct).

    • Actually this is all based on research from the pioneer in the field Richard Gere.

    • Even weirder that in TFS it's just called "a volcano". EditorDavid needs some remedial education.
      • by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Monday November 11, 2024 @10:57AM (#64936915) Journal

        There has to be a reason to not reference it as Mt. St. Helen's eruption, probably the most famous in the US since then, or long before.

        My two favorite Mt. St. Helen's stories are Harry S Truman, an old man who refused to leave his mountainside house. He's under gigatons of rock now.

        And in 1980, "Drive 55" was still in force. Some were pushing for regulators on cars to limit their max speed. But after the eruption, one guy said he sped down the mountain at 110 mph, zooming past a guy who was "only" doing 70. He lived. Mr. 70 died. And that was that for regulators.

  • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Sunday November 10, 2024 @06:56PM (#64935621) Journal

    My dad used to warn me, "If you don't study hard, you'll become a worthless gofer". I mostly ignored him and failed grammer and spailing. But here we reed about gofers doing something vary useful! Your rong Dad!

  • But I'm not quite sure what it is...

    If gophers can turn barren land rapidly productive, maybe we should drop them on the US Capital.

  • The gophers were helping the golf course!

    "Licensed to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. A man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit - ever. " Carl Spackler

  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Sunday November 10, 2024 @07:15PM (#64935647)

    scientists later dropped gophers onto parts of the scorched mountain for only 24 hours.

    ... recall them after the day is up?

    • See Snake Pliskin.

    • PPH pondered

      ... recall them after the day is up?

      Glad to see I wasn't the only one to pick that out. I was wondering if it was like mines now. Timers set for longer then area denial is needed, then they explode themselves after the time is up. (And there's the Carl Spackler reference someone was looking for.)

    • I'm a fan of Gopher Gassers myself. I didn't start this way. I tried lots of non-lethal options, some kind of Dune-like thumper, essential oils in various forms, dogs, one day I dug up about half the yard trying to track them down, it was really getting into caddy shack territory. Then I tried a gopher gasser, waited until one popped up then pushed the gasser in after it. Did that twice, no more gopher problem.

  • by klubar ( 591384 ) on Sunday November 10, 2024 @07:29PM (#64935665) Homepage

    I thought this was an posting on bring back the Gopher Protocol:

    The Gopher protocol is a communication protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents in Internet Protocol networks. The design of the Gopher protocol and user interface is menu-driven, and presented an alternative to the World Wide Web in its early stages, but ultimately fell into disfavor, yielding to Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The Gopher ecosystem is often regarded as the effective predecessor of the World Wide Web.

    Now you kids get off my lawn.

    • The Gopher protocol

      Brings back memories. Remember getting a yelling at from someone that wanted email exchanges to go faster (usually flipped twice a day, depended on the UUCP config but I don't remember more than that) because their email was extremely important, secret, vital to be received, and time sensitive. I talked to the Dean, told him to tell his professor to use a fax for anything that was extremely important, or secret, or absolutely had to be received, or time sensitive.

      Long story short - they were playing chess b

      • I sometimes wonder if UUCP could still have applications as a sort of emergency backup type protocol. Say, WW-III drops all the sattelites and punches holes all through the internet, servers could in theory be hooked back up to jerry-rigged/macguivered copper phone networks and blast email packages at each other over modems like we used to do in the 1200baud days. BBSs keeping post-apocalyptic humanity connected and all that. First step to restoring government and thus society.

        Back at uni I did this really

        • It was said around the time of the breakup of the USSR, that Telebit Trailblazer modems, which had specific UUCP support coordinated with the essentially alternating half duplex DAMQAM/PEP modulator, were valued for their ability to get useful throughput with a poor telephone system in Russia.
    • I thought this was an posting on bring back the Gopher Protocol:

      The Gopher protocol is a communication protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents in Internet Protocol networks. The design of the Gopher protocol and user interface is menu-driven, and presented an alternative to the World Wide Web in its early stages, but ultimately fell into disfavor, yielding to Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The Gopher ecosystem is often regarded as the effective predecessor of the World Wide Web.

      Now you kids get off my lawn.

      Because people like pretty graphical interfaces that show pictures & pr0n videos ... not simple functional utilitarian apps.

  • It seems pretty much as-expected that subsurface would be where the soil biology remains when you sterilize everything on the surface; but it's somewhat more surprising that there are apparently such limited alternative methods.

    Sure, if you want results within hours small burrowers seem like an unbeatable candidate; but it's much more surprising that even several decades later there would still be a layer of basically free real estate that apparently no mycelial networks, miscellaneous free-living microb
  • Impressive work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dsgrntlxmply ( 610492 ) on Sunday November 10, 2024 @08:00PM (#64935707)
    By the gophers at least. I visited Mt. St. Helen's in 1982 or 1983 on a side trip from Portland. The blue carpet in my Portland motel room had a black ring at the baseboards from volcanic ash. Viewing from what I recall as a logging road somewhere south, the devastation was beyond impressive. Silly human-crafted H-bombs seemed like firecrackers by comparison.
  • Please, come take them. Take them all!

  • Gophers have chewed up my back yard virtually beyond repair.

    I spent two weeks digging for tunnels, smoke bombing, and setting traps for one that got into my front yard last month before finally dispatching it. The front yard looked like Verdun afterwards.

  • Where did that very recent affectation of failing to name subjects early come from? Why is "When Mt. Saint Helens erupted" not used instead?

    More lazy "editing" as usual.

  • I thought for sure there would be jokes about Bill Murray blowing up gopher holes by now.

  • Watch 'em go, go go!

  • Could these gophers be employed to help fix the political system in Washington too?
  • Weird choice not to mention Mount St. Helens in the headline. Or is that in the distant past now? So many Washington volcanoes to keep track of.

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