Share On May 18, 1980, the eruption of Mount St. Helens emitted 1.5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere while its pyroclastic lava flow incinerated virtually everything within a 230-square-mile radius. Three years later, wildlife experts enlisted a team of local helpers for just 24 hours to speed up the area’s environmental recovery. But these weren’t human volunteers—they were gophers. And while analysis later that decade proved the rodents ecologically benefited the area, recent research published in the journal, Frontiers in Microbiomes, indicates their regional influence can…
