 The eruption had a massive effect on all aspects of the ecosystem, including soils, oceanic water, terrain, terrestrial plants, land, shore, and seabirds, arthropods, marine algae, and marine invertebrates.The goal was to recognize patterns of recolonization for each individual species and see how, if at all, they coincided with each other.There were many apparent patterns researchers noticed after studying the recolonization efforts on Kasatochi.