JUDY WOODRUFF, The Washington Post": Mount St. Helens in Washington state is one of the most well-monitored volcanoes on the planet, and with good reason. It is still active. And more than three decades to the day after it launched a stunning and destructive display of lava and ash, it continues to transform a region and its ecology. Even now, scientists are still learning about the aftermath and how some life is emerging from the ashes. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien has the story, part of our new weekly series about exploring the leading edge of science. 36 years after its spectacular deadly eruption, Mount St. Helens still rumbles and bears scars from that earth-shattering day. But hike down the slopes, away from the Dragon Crater just a little, and you'll see Mother Nature hard at work. And there's a good chance you'll bump into a team of scientists led by John Bishop. He is an evolutionary biologist at Washington State University, Vancouver. The goal of our research is to understand how plant and animal communities reform after a catastrophic disturbance. Bishop is one of a select group of researchers studying this rebound from a volcanic eruption. Back in 1980, Mount St. Helens had given scientists all kinds of clues that a big disturbance was brewing. Two months before it blew, the volcano was venting huge amounts of steam, and there was a series of earthquakes. Even with all those ominous signs, the eruption was larger than anyone predicted. It happened at 8.32 on the morning of May 18, 1980. An earthquake caused the north face of the mountain to collapse. After that, it uncorked an explosion that was directed horizontally and leveled the forest to 13 miles out from the volcano. The eruption column of volcanic ash and gas rose 80,000 feet, while a tsunami of 1,800-degree gas and rock raced down the valley at 450 miles an hour, a so-called pyroclastic flow. Anything biological that was remaining after the landslide would have been completely vaporized. It was just a barren landscape, gray and... pumice-colored. MILES O'It killed every living thing in a 230-square-mile area. What was left was akin to a moonscape. Fifty-seven people died. Some remains were never recovered. Bishop and his team have had a front-row seat, as nature got busy bringing this place back to life. They wanted to know where it begins and how it takes root. Here, it started with these purple flowers. Alpine lupine were the first plants to return. For many years, they were pretty much the only game in town. But as they went through their life cycles over several seasons, they created soil from the volcanic ash. And that made it possible for woody plants, like the Sitka willow, to find a home. They are how a forest gets started. MILES O'But it hasn't been easy for them. DAVID WALLACE, One of the things we've realized about these willows is that they're not getting big. That's important because they create habitat for birds and mammals. We've learned that these landscapes are characterized by extreme instability in the populations of the plants and animals that colonize them. MILES O'In a recovering ecosystem like this one, where just a few species have managed to regain a toehold, even seemingly insignificant pests can play an outsized role. MILES O'In how the landscape bounces back, these weevils are an invasive species with a particular taste for the Sitka willow. JOHN BISHOP, BIRD AND MAMMAL HABITAT, B.C.: Any stem larger than about one centimeter is usually destroyed by this weevil. And the effect of it is to keep these plants small, not let them form the architecture that's needed for bird and mammal habitat. MILES O'But Bishop says it's important to remember we're still early on in what will be a very long game. He says the plants and insects will battle it out over time, and eventually the ecosystem will become more diverse, more stable, and this will be a forest again. When I'm out there working on the Pumice Plain, one moment I'll look around and I'll be stunned by the amount of vegetation and the number of birds that are present. But then the next moment I step back and I think, there is hardly anything here. MILES O'centuries away from replacing the old growth forest that was there. MILES O'Mount St. Helens is the perfect place to test an important question in ecology. Life does go on, but how? John Bishop will keep looking for the answer here, unless Mount St. Helens awakens and reboots the landscape once again. Miles O'Brien, the PBS NewsHour.