The northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides) brings unexpected benefits to the ecosystem
All photos of Canada/Alamy
Two years after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, a team of researchers rode a gopher in a helicopter to a landscape covered in volcanic ash. Decades later, that single gopher’s day-long digging efforts may have increased the diversity of soil fungi and helped restore the destroyed ecosystem.
“There’s something to be said about learning lessons from gophers,” he says Mia Maltz from the University of Connecticut is using this eruption to understand how forests recover from other stresses, such as wildfires and forest fires.
Source: www.newscientist.com
