Gopher Visit to Mt. Saint Helens has Lasting Effect on the Soil and Vegetation

In 1983, three years after the eruption of the Mt. Saint Helens volcano, professors Mike Allen of UC Riverside and James McMahon of Utah State University traveled to a devastated area on Mt. Saint Helens and released gophers into fenced enclosures for one day.  They returned six years later and documented that the areas where the gophers had been released contained thousands of plants whereas the untouched plots remained barren.  Now, forty years later Mike Allen, an emeritus professor (and former ETOX faculty member) and Emma Aronson, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology and a current ETOX faculty member, returned and demonstrated that the gopher plots had dramatically different and improved soil microorganisms.  Their work was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes and was highlighted in UC Riverside News.  It was also featured in many other news reports such as this report in IFLScience.  Our congratulations to Mike, James, Emma and colleagues for their interesting work and the attention that it has received.  [The photo above is of a gopher and plant near the gopher enclosure fence from 1982. It is from Mike Allen and was published in the UCR News Article.]