On May 18, 1980, Washingtons Mount St. Helenscovered 22,000 square miles with 540 million tons of ash.
Six years after the brief gopher intervention, however, the two plots of land hosted 40,000 thriving plants.
In stark contract, the surrounding region was still mostly barren.
A gopher.Image: siamesepuppy/Flickr
In just 24 hours, the gophers work seemed like magic.
But the real secret?
As the researchers predicted, the gophers had dug up communities of fungi and bacteria.
This allowed for rapid regeneration of the environment after the cataclysmic environmental disaster.
The study also identified other helpful microorganism carriers.
The trees came back almost immediately in some places.
It didnt all die like everyone thought.
Correction: An earlier version of this article featured a prairie dog as the top image.
It now properly shows a gopher.
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