Hire a Gopher to Rototill Your Land

We may holler at them when they dig up our lawns and gardens, but pocket gophers are an important part of the ecosystem, say Jim Reichman and Eric Seabloom in a UC Santa Barbara press release.  They change the nutrient availability for plants, among many things:

They act like little rototillers, loosening and aerating the soil.  They loosen the soil and the speed at which plants decompose, causing higher production of plants, and they may be important to the biodiversity of plants.  They definitely have an important effect.”

It’s surprising anything would want to live underground, since it is costly; “burrowing through the soil costs 360 to 3,400 times as much energy as walking the same distance on the surface.”  Nevertheless, they are well adapted for their role in the underground economy.  Good eyesight is not important in their usual dark surroundings, but “they compensate for this with other, well-developed senses, such as large whiskers, which are sensitive to movement and help them in dark tunnels.  They have powerful claws and teeth for digging.  They are vegetarian, or herbivores, surviving mostly on roots,” the press release explains.  Their diet of roots significantly impacts plants, but has an overall beneficial effect on the landscape:

“Excavation behavior, which involves construction of long burrows by displacing soil into mounds on the surface, generates major impacts on the physical environment,” said Reichman.  “These produce a complex mosaic of nutrients and soil conditions that results in vertical mixing (through burrow collapse and moving deep soil to the surface) and horizontal patchiness (in relation to the hollow burrows, refilled burrows, surrounding soil matrix and surface mounds).”

For these reasons, gophers are the “ecosystem engineers” of the landscape.  The authors suggest that our attempts at cultivation and pest control has led to deterioration of the soil and detrimental impacts on native plants.  It’s another reason to allow restoration of native grasslands where possible.

A place for everything, and everything in its place in God’s country.  Each player has the equipment and the skills to do its job.  The payroll operates automatically, and the system as a whole enjoys the fringe benefits.  The little rototillers seem to enjoy their way of life (including making humans stomp their feet).