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How gophers brought Mount St. Helens back to life in one day
- conradpuig 2y ago[flagged]
- conradpuig 2y ago[flagged]
- MrMcCall 2y agoEvery old-growth forest should be protected and treasured. They are the well-springs of fertility that link the entire Earth back to our pre-industrial ecosystems. And, of course, ground-working animals such as gophers should be valued for their role in helping to maintain the fecudity of the environment, whether they are ultra-polite or not ;-)
- dgfitz 2y agoI agree with you. By definition, recreating old things takes time. As stewards of this rock, we should tend to and protect what we have.
- chasil 2y agoAlas, any forest in the path of a volcanic eruption is beyond our ability to protect (for now). Perhaps one day, we will be able to do so.
- lukasb 2y agoIf you RTFA, they said that old growth forests managed to recover from the eruption.
- chasil 2y agoI did read the fine article, but the eruption there only deposited (high-temperature?) ash. In more extreme eruptions that involve molten lava or other more violent impacts, you will certainly agree that protection cannot be offered.
- BigGreenJorts 2y agoAllowing the forest to face an eruption, uninhibited, is probably what will keep it old. Most of these truly old ecosystems have developed with natural disasters common to the area in mind. Trees have to function on a centuries long timeline.
- sliken 2y agoThat would be selfish and terrible. The most productive farming in the USA is largely because of previous volcanic eruptions. Similarly the water cycle, subduction, earthquakes, floods, fires, and carbon cycle are what keeps soil healthy and allows for nutritious food. If you remove all that you end up with MUCH more energy intensive agriculture and an economic incentive to cheap out.
- James_K 2y agoIs it just me or is this title designed to make you think gophers somehow caused a volcano to erupt?
- SwiftyBug 2y agoNot only that, but I first thought this was about Go developers.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- II2II 2y agoOne's relationship with the topic probably has a lot to do with how the title is interpreted. I grew up not-too-far from Mount St. Helens and was of school age not-too-long after the eruption, so it had an indirect impact upon my life. I immediately understood what they were getting at. Likewise, the people who did the research and the people who wrote the article had a closer relationship to the topic, so they title made sense. To someone who was more distant, in time or space, I can see how the title may be misleading now that it has been pointed out. So no, I don't think the title was designed in such a way.
- James_K 2y agoCounterpoint: the article is aimed at people who know nothing about the topic, the first image in the article (the one you'll see if you post a link to it) is of Mount St. Helens erupting, and it drives engagement. I was definitely much more likely to click on the article when I thought it was about gophers blowing up volcanoes. The title also explicitly mentions it happened in "one day" which isn't long enough for re-wilding but is the right time frame for an eruption.
- II2II 2y agoI have no doubt the title (and first image) were selected to drive engagement, I simply have serious doubts that it was intended to drive engagement from that angle. To add some context, the eruption of Mount St. Helens was viewed as a fairly significant ecological disaster in the 1980's (and, for once, one that wasn't caused by humans). There were a lot of photos of the devastation, and people were wondering how long it would take to recover. In all probability, the title was written from that perspective. Which is engaging, at least to those who lived near the time of the event or who are interested in how ecosystems recover. As for gophers causing it to erupt, that type of connotation implies a very different type of publication.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoCall me a cynic but this seems like a weird story. How did they catch the gophers again? Did they do a comparable test by turning over some soil with a spade? If this is true though, I also find it weird that the gophers dug deeper than the leftover plants / ecosystem buried beneath the surface could do themselves; seeds want to go up, after all, breaking up the soil as they emerge. Of course, the ash may have been too dense, idk.
- sailfast 2y agoThere’s a containment fence in the photo.
- happyopossum 2y agoGophers don’t give a flying fig about fences. Seriously, as someone who struggles with gophers all the time, I really want to know how they controlled them!
- leptons 2y agoI had a gopher in my little back yard recently. I feel your pain. The fucker killed several nice bushes we had and tore up our lawn pretty badly. I tried flooding his tunnels, but the fucker had a plan for that. I injured myself trying to get him with a sharp stick. Gopher 2, me 0. Then we brought in a pro who set a trap in one of the tunnels. That gopher is gone, but the tunnels remain, and after a few months getting my landscaping back together, a new gopher has moved in. God I hate those little assholes especially when they pop their heads out of the ground. They are just so smug about it.
- cratermoon 2y agoI saw a movie about a gopher infestation at a golf course. Nothing the greenskeepers did could dislodge them.
- leptons 2y ago
- tuumi 2y ago"Two years after the eruption, they tested this theory." Has the science community just given up on the word hypothesis? It's not that complicated and in the USA the word is taught almost every year starting in elementary. When a science driven website like this has given up then we've lost the theory/hypothesis distinction.
- equestria 2y agoIt wasn't a terribly useful distinction to begin with - especially in natural sciences where there is usually no definite proof, just various degrees of confidence. We had quite a few linguistic purity battles in tech, too. You never win and it's not particularly worthwhile to play that game.
- arcbyte 2y agoWe use words because they have meaning and we communicate ideas through them because we've built a shared understanding of that meaning. If we abondon meaning, we're abandoning reason. It's worth the fight.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoLanguage changes over time, and there is no way to make it stand still. It's just wasted energy.
- cogman10 2y ago
- pseudolus 2y agoThey certainly are more industrious than I would have thought. Per the original paper "Findings from a fundamental study recounted by Logan (2007) showed that a single gopher can move 227 kg of soil per month, with gopher populations translocating 38,000 kg of soil per acre per year." [0] [0] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiomes/articles/10.3389/frmbi.2024.1399416/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiomes/articles/10...
- alexpotato 2y agoWorms are also up there in terms of "large amounts of soil moved by tiny creatures" https://www.natureswayresources.com/earthworms/ https://www.natureswayresources.com/earthworms/
- sriacha 2y agoIndeed, and where they were not present they have a powerful detrimental effect when introduced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North_A...
- mhb 2y agoHow did they catch the gophers after a day?
- glitcher 2y agoI had the same question. The linked paper says they used gopher enclosures: > In 1982, an individual pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides [Richardson]) from a nearby clearcut was placed in a 1m2 enclosure around a single L. lepidus individual for 24 hours
- krisoft 2y ago"scientists dropped a few local gophers on two pumice plots for a day" I bet to this day no other gophers believe the story those gophers tell at the pub. :)
- abhinai 2y agoAmazing! The title is a bit confusing though.
- octernion 2y ago> "An unhappy gopher and plant near the gopher enclosure fence" i do like it when they take slight liberties with their captions. fantastic
- CatWChainsaw 2y agoIt's gonna be a fine, swell day.
- nf3 2y agoEarth worms provide a similar service in mixing clay and organic material to create clay-humus aggregate. In oceans, whales also mix different layers of sea water with their vertical movements.
- BurningFrog 2y agoI think the whale population is still at least 90% below pre whaling levels. So the sea water layers are probably less mixed than natural. No idea what effects that might have.
- quercusa 2y agoEarthworms are a mixed bag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_earthworms_of_North_A...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]