🐿️🌋 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.
👉 popularmechanics.com/science/e…
#volcano #ecology #nature #science #biology #washington #mountsthelens #microbes
43 Years Ago, Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto a Volcano. Today, They’re Tiny Heroes.
It started as a go-for-broke experiment, but it wound up saving an ecosystem.Michael Natale (Popular Mechanics)
