Andrew Hewus FreshMar 22
TKSST • seethis.tv 🌈🪐✨

🐿️🌋 In 1980 researchers helicoptered #gophers onto the barren slopes of Mount St. Helens to test their role as #ecosystem engineers.

By digging through volcanic #ash, the #rodents brought vital mycorrhizal #fungi to the surface and sparked a #plant explosion that's still visible four decades later.

👉 https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a70780384/gophers-mount-st-helens-eruption/

#volcano #ecology #nature #science #biology #washington #mountsthelens #microbes

43 Years Ago, Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto a Volcano. Today, They’re Tiny Heroes.

A bunch of gophers helped restore the plant life around Mount St. Helens after the devastating eruption in May 1980.

Popular Mechanics
Mar 20 at 9:30amWeb
Show threadCedar Fen Farm Cedar Fen FarmMar 20

@tksst

Wow, such a creative approach. Wonder if they would help bomb ravaged land. They've had some success seeding fungi in the ME on poisoned soil.

Show threadCohoMar 21
@tksst
Those digger species are incredibly important. The Navajo elders told the national forest service if they got rid of prairie dog towns by poisoning and trapping them, the water would go away. And that's exactly what happened when they eradicated prairie dogs , the ground water went away