Plant reestablishment 15 years after the debris avalanche at Mount St. Helens, Washington

Vegetation has slowly reestablished on the debris avalanche deposit in the 15 years after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens that created a 60-km2 debris avalanche, the largest landslide in recorded history. There has been a gradual increase in species richness and cover, but only 61% of the species present on the mountain before the eruption have established on the debris avalanche deposit. Plant cover averages 38% and is extremely patchy. Life form composition changed over successional time, because part of the avalanche deposit was invaded by introduced plant species aerially seeded to reduce erosion, the site offers the opportunity to compare successional processes occurring with and without introduced species. Long-term recovery trends and effects of nonnative species on succession are important to understand since plant reestablishment practices often rely on nonnative species for enhancing vegetation recovery of denuded sites along road sides, strip mines, or other human-generated clearing. Fifteen years after the eruption and 10 years since the invasion by introduced species, plots invaded by nonnative species had greater vegetation cover and more native plant richness than plots that were not inundated. Significantly greater mortality of conifers occurred in the plots dominated by introduced species shortly after the invasion of those species, but no difference in conifer mortality occurred in the last 5 years. Even so, the plots dominated by introduced species still have fewer conifer trees. Thus, the short-term pulse of conifer mortality after the invasion of introduced species may have long-term effects on the recovery of the dominant vegetation. It will likely be decades before there is 100% plant cover on the debris avalanche deposit and a century or more before full recovery of the vegetation system.