Original sentence: However, the mounds were already fully formed and the gophers may have just been maintaining them.In the computer simulations, mounds naturally emerged from the landscape, and reached topographic maturity after hundreds of year of gopher activity, which could explain why nobody has ever witnessed the growth of one.It could be argued that gophers live in the mounds opportunistically but did not build them.Nevertheless, the fact that the surface area of a typical Mima mound is similar to the size of an individual gopher's home range is consistent with the theory they were constructed by the rodents.One theory on the origin of Mima mounds is that they were created by  pocket gophers—small, burrowing rodents with fur-lined "pockets," or pouches, in their cheeks.Researchers in the 1940s found that Mima mounds tend to form in areas with poorly draining soils, so the "Fossorial Rodent Hypothesis" proposed that gophers build mounds to stay above perched water tables.The slow modeled mound growth rates and their spatial distribution agreed with field observations
Edited sentence: Although these results agreed with the Fossorial Rodent Hypothesis, it wasn't proof of the theory because the mounds were already fully formed and the gophers may have just been maintaining them.Based on this observation, the "Fossorial Rodent Hypothesis" was proposed that gophers build mounds as a way to stay above perched water tables.In addition, the model showed that mounds reach topographic maturity after hundreds of year of gopher activity, a good explanation for why nobody has ever witnessed the growth of one.In the computer simulations, mounds naturally emerged from the landscape.It was noted by several researchers in the 1940's that Mima mounds tend to form in areas with poorly draining soils.Nevertheless, the fact that the surface area of a typical Mima mound is similar to the size of an individual gopher's home range is a strong indication they were constructed by the rodents.Of course, it could be argued that gophers live in the mounds opportunistically but did not build them.One major theory concerning the origin of Mima mounds argues that they were created by  pocket gophers—small, burrowing rodents with fur-lined "pockets," or pouches, in their cheeks.The slow modeled mound growth rates and their spatial distribution compared favorably with field observations