Life Returns to Mount St. Helens 
One year after a major eruption 
the slopes show abundant signs 
by Roger del Moral 
Picking my way across a dry and 
barren mudflow 5,000 feet up on the 
slopes of Mount St. Helens last Sep- 
tember, only four months after the 
eruption that devastated the mountain 
and far from any visible vegetation, 
I discovered an isolated, yet active, 
ant nest. These ants, probably For- 
mica subnuda, were at the top of a 
food chain whose lower levels, hidden 
in the mudflow, were unknown. De- 
composing organisms and living plants 
may have formed the base of the 
chain, but without disturbing the nest, 
1 could not determine whether soil 
animals or fungi were involved. De- 
spite my curiosity, I decided that my 
ignorance was less important than the 
existence of this microcosmic ecosys- 
tem in a veritable desert. The ants 
were adding nutrients to the mud and 
hastening the reestablishment of less 
ad hoc food chains. After watching the 
activities of these tiny survivors for 
a while, I continued up the slope, 
searching for signs of life among the 
ruins of what was once the most per- 
fect of the Cascade volcanoes. 
As Mount St. Helens marks the first 
anniversary of its May 18, 1980, erup- 
tion, it has already been exposed to 
more hours of scientific scrutiny than 
most volcanoes are ever subjected to. 
Logistical and technical problems 
plagued efforts to study earlier erup- 
tions of other North American vol- 
canoes. Mount Katmai in Alaska, for 
example, erupted in 1912, but ecolo- 
gist R. F. Griggs (to whom scientists 
owe a major debt for his pioneering 
botanical and geologic studies of that 
volcano) was unable to approach the 
mountain until 1916. By contrast, the 
turned much of the mountain into 
of resurrection 
proximity of Mount St. Helens to sci- 
entific centers provides a rare oppor- 
tunity to apply advanced methods in 
comprehensive, long-term studies of 
how ecosystems recover after a major 
volcanic eruption. 
As an ecologist interested in com- 
Ray Atkeson 
Above: Residents of Portland, 
Oregon, had a spectacular view of 
the July 22, 1980, eruption of Mount 
St. Helens, one of several sizable 
blasts that followed the major 
eruption of May 18. The mountain’s 
proximity to urban centers has been 
a boon to scientists. Right: Two 
months after the May 18 eruption, a 
parsley fern was found growing in a 
protected area along a creek on the 
slope of the mountain. The fern, 
which survived a small mudflow, is 
growing out of a mud-covered 
crevice. 
an apparent grave, 
petition and succession in stressful en- 
vironments, I found myself among the 
hundreds of scientists drawn to the 
mountain by the opportunity to doc- 
ument in detail the recovery process 
and by the exciting chance to test 
ecological, evolutionary, and biogeo- 
graphical hypotheses. Biologists ob- 
serving events as they unfold on 
Mount St. Helens are asking many 
questions: Which species first colonize 
the various completely destroyed habi- 
tats? Are succession processes on to- 
tally denuded sites fundamentally dif- 
ferent from processes on sites with 
a residual biota? Does repeated ex- 
tinction and recolonization result in 
populations that are genetically dis- 
tinct from populations of the same 
species in stable habitats? Might com- 
munities whose species occur in pro- 
portions different from the regional 
norm be produced? 
My first field experience on the vol- 
cano after the eruption was on a re- 
connaissance trip last July with Jerry 
Franklin of the U.S. Forest Service 
and several other biologists. While we 
were awed by the magnitude of the 
destruction, I was impressed even then 
by the early evidence of biological re- 
covery. Since that time, I have made 
several research trips into various 
parts of the volcano’s “red zone” (the 
Forest Service’s designation for the 
potentially most dangerous land, to 
which access is closely controlled). I 
have also spoken with many other sci- 
entists investigating resurrection on 
the mountain. The emerging picture 
is one of diversity — diversity of impact 
and, consequently, of the conditions 
to which organisms must adapt. Al- 
Roger del Moral 
36 
