NEWS | IN BRIEF
sciencemag.org SCIENCEPHOTO: DIANE COOK AND LEN JENSHEL/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTIONTHREE QSWitness to a landscape’s recovery
Charlie Crisafulli f rst visited Mount St. Helens 2 months after the 18 May 1980 eruption that
ripped the top of the volcano, killed 57 people, and destroyed 600 square kilometers of forests.
He was a 22-year-old with an undergraduate degree in ecology, accompanying other scientists
who swarmed to the mountain. Since then, Crisafulli—now an ecologist with the U.S. Forest
Service—has spent much of each summer taking the mountain’s pulse as life returns. (Read a
longer version of this interview at https://scim.ag/CrisafulliQA.)
Q: What did you see after the eruption?
A: We were all absolutely blown away by
the intensity and extent of the disturbance.
Our design was to take advantage of the
natural experiment that the volcano created
because there were dif erent intensities of
disturbance. ... I saw this one sprig, and it
was a parsley fern. Every spring since then I
have gone and said hello, greeted that same
exact plant.
Q: What are some of the key
scientific insights from the work?
A: The initial impression was that the
regeneration of the area’s ecology is going
to come from the edges and from distant
source populations. Instead what we found is
that, in some 90% of the landscape, the rule
was survivorship, albeit at greatly reduced
numbers and in isolated refugias. And that
was not something we anticipated.Q: How has the research informed
understanding of other volcanoes?
A: When a volcano starts acting up in Chile,
or in Japan, or Iceland, or New Zealand, we’re
often contacted to say, “Help us anticipate
what’s likely to happen.” What we have seen
is strikingly similar patterns of ecological
response. ... In all cases, what we found is
nutrient-impoverished volcanic material.
And that’s one of the biggest obstacles [to
ecological recovery]. There seems to be always
heroes at these volcanoes that play critically
important roles. At Mount St. Helens, it was
species such as lupine and alder. They had a
special association on their roots with bacteria
that produce nitrogen. So they were able to
exploit these landscapes, and in doing so,
they modif ed these sites and facilitated the
colonization by many other plants and animals.develop new dating techniques while
providing dates as a service to NSF-funded
researchers. The NASEM report also recom-
mends building a $3 million anvil press for
simulating the pressures in Earth’s core and
creating a center for geophysicists who study
hydrology and other phenomena close to the
planet’s surface. It endorsed development of
two initiatives that would require new fund-
ing: one to study subduction zones, where
oceanic crust dives beneath continents, and
the other to map the continent’s “critical
zone,” the subsurface layer of soil, rocks, and
water that fuels life above.
New head of U.K. funding agency
LEADERSHIP | Ottoline Leyser, a plant
biologist at the University of Cambridge,
will be the next director of the United
Kingdom’s £7 billion research funding
agency, UK Research and Innovation
(UKRI), the government announced
last week. Leyser directs the Sainsbury
Laboratory at Cambridge, a leading plant
research center with about 130 scientists.
She serves on the prime minister’s Council
for Science and Technology and has called
for increasing diversity in science and
improving research culture. UKRI will see
large budget increases as the government
tries to raise R&D investment to 2.4% of
gross domestic product over 7 years. But
the implementation of Brexit in December
has left unanswered questions about U.K.
participation in the European Union’s
research funding programs. Leyser takes
over from Mark Walport next month.EPA skips regulating pollutant
ENVIRONMENT | In the latest twist in a
decades-old dispute, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency has reportedly decided
it will not set a drinking water standard
for perchlorate, a pollutant linked to brain
damage. The chemical, which is used in
rocket fuel and other products but also
occurs naturally, has seeped into numer-
ous water supplies. Environmentalists have
long pushed for its federal regulation, and
in 2011 the Obama administration began
that process. But the Trump administration
has decided the chemical does not pose a
serious threat and does not require federal
oversight because some states already
regulate it, The New York Times reported
on 14 May.THREE QS806 22 MAY 2020 • VOL 368 ISSUE 6493
Published by AAAS