Ecological Responses to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. HelensVirginia H. Dale, Frederick J. Swanson, Charles M. Crisafulli Recon?guring Disturbance, Succession, and Forest Management: The Science of Mount St. Helens When Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, it did more than just recon?gure a large piece of Cascadian landscape. It also led to dramatic revisions in our perspectives on disturbances, secondary succession, and forestry practices. The Mount St. Helens landscape turned out to be a far more complex place than the “moonscape” that it initially appeared to be. Granted, a large area was literally scoured and sterilized, and that vast expanse of newly formed rock, mud?ows, and avalanche debris up and down the mountain made the Mount St. Helens landscape unique. But I still remember my surprise when, as I stepped out of the helicopter on ?rst landing within the extensive “devastated zone,” I saw hundreds of plants pushing their way up through the mantel of tephra. Surviving organisms were stunning in their diversity, abundance, and the mechanisms by which they survived. They persisted as whole organisms living below ground, encased within late-persisting snowbanks, and buried in lake and stream sediments. They survived as rhizomes transported along with the massive landslide that accompanied the eruption and as stems that suffered the abrasion of mud?ows. Mud?ows ?oated nurse logs covered with tree seedlings and then redeposited them on the ?oor of a forested river terrace. Millions, perhaps billions, of plants survived as rootstocks and rhizomes that pushed their way up through the tephra, and others survived on the bases of uprooted trees. |
Contents
Geological and Ecological Settings of Mount St Helens Before May 18 1980 | 15 |
Physical Events Environments and GeologicalEcological Interactions | 27 |
Plant Responses in Forests of the TephraFall Zone | 47 |
Plant Succession on the Mount St Helens DebrisAvalanche Deposit | 59 |
Geomorphic Change and Vegetation Development on the Muddy | 75 |
Proximity Microsites and Biotic Interactions During Early Succession | 93 |
Remote Sensing of Vegetation Responses During the First 20 Years Following | 111 |
Arthropods as Pioneers in the Regeneration of Life on the PyroclasticFlow | 127 |
Amphibian Responses to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St Helens | 183 |
SmallMammal Survival and Colonization on the Mount St Helens | 199 |
Story of a Symbiosis | 221 |
Patterns of Decomposition and Nutrient Cycling Across a Volcanic Disturbance | 233 |
Lupine Effects on Soil Development and Function During Early Primary | 243 |
Response and Recovery of Lakes | 255 |
Ecological Perspectives on Management of the Mount St Helens Landscape | 277 |
| 301 | |
Causes and Consequences of Herbivory on Prairie Lupine Lupinus lepidus | 151 |
Responses of Fish to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St Helens | 163 |
Glossary | 329 |
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Common terms and phrases
abundant amphibians Antos aquatic arthropods avalanche beetle biological biotic blowdown zone carbon carcasses Cascade Cascade Range Castle Lake channel Chapter clear-cut coho salmon Coldwater Lake colonization communities conifers cover crater Creek Crisafulli debris debris-avalanche deposit decomposition density dispersal disturbance zones dominated Douglas-fir ecosystem erosion eruption of Mount establishment factors Figure fish floodplain Fork Toutle River fungi growth habitat Helens herbivores important increased influenced initial landscape lupine mammals microbial Moral Mount St Muddy River mudflow mycorrhizal nitrogen North Fork Toutle nutrient occurred organic patches patterns phytoplankton plants plots populations posteruption prairie lupine preeruption primary succession processes Pumice Plain pyroclastic flows pyroclastic-flow zone rates red alder riparian salamanders sampled scorch zones sediment seedlings seeds shrubs slopes soil Spirit Lake streams substrates successional surface survival Swanson tephra tephra-fall zone terrestrial tion Toutle River traps trees trout understory vegetation volcanic volume Washington Zobel zooplankton
Popular passages
Page 6 - A disturbance is any relatively discrete event in time that disrupts ecosystem, community, or population structure and changes resources, substrate availability, or the physical environment.
Page 321 - Pages 231-248 in SAC Keller, editor. Mount St. Helens: Five Years Later. Eastern Washington University Press, Cheney, Washington, USA.
Page 321 - Scott, KM 1988. Origins, Behavior, and Sedimentology of Lahars and Lahar-Runout Flows in the Toutle-Cowlitz River system.
Page 304 - Calculation of the Primary Trajectories of Plumed Seeds in Steady Winds with Variable Convection,
Page 312 - Halvorson, Johnathan J., Jeffrey L. Smith, and RI Papendick (1997). "Issues of Scale for Evaluating Soil Quality," Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 52(1). Jan/Feb. Heimlich, R., and N. Bills (1989). Productivity and Erodibility of US Cropland. AER-604. US Dept. Agr., Econ. Res. Serv. Hornsby, AG, and RG Brown (1992). "Soil Parameters Significant to Pesticide Fate.
Page 304 - Bjornn, TC. and DW Reiser. 1991. Habitat requirements of salmonids in streams.