On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, erupted.

The active volcano, which is just 52 miles away from Portland, Oregon, killed 57 people – in fact, it was the worst volcanic eruption to date in US history.

It also caused significant damage to the nearby area, with the scorching ash and volcanic debris causing long-term damage to the nearby environment.

And even though we’re forty five years on from the volcanic destruction, the land that the lava razed is still devoid of plant and animal life, with the volcanic path struggling to revitalise.

Except for a couple of small areas in which, instead of thick volcanic rock and debris, plant life is thriving all this time later – and for the quirkiest reason.

In a new paper which was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes, a research team from the University of California described how, just a couple of years after the devastating eruption, a couple of gophers were dropped onto the ravaged land for just 24 hours.

This was because a big priority after the eruption was how to reclaim the land, and reintroduce the biodiversity that had once thrived on the mountain. It was hypothesised that, thanks to their natural behaviors, gophers would revitalise the soil and reintroduce life to the scorched land.

And according to Michael Allen in a University of California, Riverside statement, the proof is evident even today:

“They’re often considered pests, but we thought they would take old soil, move it to the surface, and that would be where recovery would occur. In the 1980s, we were just testing the short-term reaction,” said Allen. “Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see a residual effect 40 years later?”

Quite startlingly, the land in which the gophers spent a day is still thriving, with vast and diverse communities of fungi and bacteria – vital for the nutrient cycles in the soil which help plants and animals thrive – present and multiplying in the soil.

These important fungi – known as mycorrhizal fungi – are important to helping plants to grow, since they help keep the roots strong and introduce nutrients to the plants.

All this is vital to the regeneration of an area that has been destroyed by a volcanic eruption – or any other circumstances in which biodiversity has been lost, and needs reintroducing.

And thanks to the gophers, which – as avid gardeners might already be aware – love to burrow and overturn soil and plant life, these fungi were not lost to time beneath the dense, rocky volcanic debris.

With the soil overturned and the remaining ash mixed with the soil, the gopher-supported areas of the mountainside were able to thrive once more.

The long-term success of this quirky and novel concept is vital information, as we seek to support our planet and its biodiversity into the future.

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