World's Largest Organism is Dying

The largest organism in the world has survived relatively unnoticed within the Fishlake National Forest in Utah. Now, researchers are concerned that this organism, 1,000's of years old, is dying.

The organism is named Pando, Latin for I spread, and is a massive grove of quaking aspens. You have seen quaking aspens if you've visited the mountains of Colorado. They are known for their bright yellow color in the fall and make a quaking sound as wind passes through their leaves.

Aspens have the unique ability to produce genetically identical offspring through offshoots from their root system. Through their ability to multiply asexually through their root system, Aspens tend to colonize large swaths of land through a shared root system.

That is exactly what happened in Richfield, Utah, where a grove of 47,000 aspens all originate from a single male parent aspen, sharing an identical genetic makeup. The single male aspen genetically cloned itself and has been doing so for thousands of years.

The team specifically found that the grove of aspens hasn't been able to effectively replace its aging and dying trees. The grove of 47,000 trees has remained for thousands of years partially because the single organism has been able to supply trees at every stage of an aspen's life, helping it to be resistant to external threats. However, grazing animals have threatened Pando's ability to produce young offspring to replace dying trees.

www.forbes.com...

I hope they manage to find a way to deal the rampant herbivore population. Maybe they could do try reintroducing wolves like they did in Yellowstone.

a reply to: Grik123


This is the way it has always been. Life dies off, new life will arise.

I can't remember the exact number, but the Earth has been through extinction level events before. Life always finds a way.

five mass extinctions.

Difference here... it would appear to be preventable with the effort of hu mans. Stop letting cattle consume it, Stop allowing grazing permits.

nvm

originally posted by: highvein
a reply to: Grik123


This is the way it has always been. Life dies off, new life will arise.

I can't remember the exact number, but the Earth has been through extinction level events before. Life always finds a way.

Life WILL find a way.

We may not be among it though.

I was surprised to find that poplar trees make runners and send up another poplar tree about forty feet north of the location of the tree. I think it is the Tamarack that does that too. Here it talks about root sprouts at up to thirty feet from the tree. www.fs.fed.us... I guess my memory at forty feet was off.

There used to be large organisms all over the world but we killed them off. Nobody realized that trees can have rhizomes that travel before. But it has been fifty to seventy years ago that this was discovered in trees, but they do not teach it in school. I guess they think teaching us math most people will never use is more important than teaching us about some of this weird stuff in nature. I like the forest service from Wyoming, they have a lot of research online to look at.

The reason I did this research is I used a wireless fault finder to check the continuity through a tree. It has better circuitry in it than in my car wiring. But when I walked back and scratched my head, I lifted the receptor to a different tree and it went off. I got signals in most trees up to thirty feet away, and better reception than I got from the car wiring. The earth of a forest is an electrolyte, trees are in communication with each other, the farthest reaching tree I tested at about thirty feet or so was the same kind of tree as I had the emitter on. So I spent a whole day researching this. Very interesting, these trees can share signals and warn others if a herbivore or insect is eating them and they respond by releasing chemistry to ward off the thing chewing on them or it can signal wasps and hornets to eat the bugs or chase away the deer. This subject is one of the most interesting things I studied. I learned what plant defense chemistry is and am studying how it can harm or help us.

originally posted by: Mahogany

originally posted by: highvein
a reply to: Grik123


This is the way it has always been. Life dies off, new life will arise.

I can't remember the exact number, but the Earth has been through extinction level events before. Life always finds a way.

Life WILL find a way.

We may not be among it though.

if we're not among it, then i expect life to thrive even longer.

a reply to: Grik123

I vaguely remember reading a blip about this the other day.
It seems as if other things were causing the reproduction issues along with animals.
I bookmarked it at work as an interesting read but, had forgotten. Thanks for the reminder as I will have to look into it now.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

I was going to write a thread about it a year or so ago. People have killed the wolf population so the deer population rocketed. The deer are eating the sapling shoots as fast as they appear so it's all dying off and not being replenished.

Solutions? Allow wolf populations to return to manage the deer. Alternatively put a price on the deer and invite hunters to come and thin the herds.

Cattle are a problem too, but I'm sure farmers would find a way to reduce the impact with a financial incentive.

ETA - 'Utah wolves' ideas to bring wolves back to the area.

Wolf management plan and why it's the way it is. (pdf)

a reply to: Kandinsky

Alternatively put a price on the deer and invite hunters to come and thin the herds.

Put the hunters in helicopters, they can get a whole lot more at once that way.

Wolves eat livestock. And blow down houses.

a reply to: Phage

Sounds reasonable.

Here's a basic site on the Utah mule deer pop.

Many of the natural predators of the mule deer have been removed from Utah. Without predators to keep their numbers in check, the mule deer population can grow so large that they have trouble finding enough food. This also causes them to come into contact with people more often, leading to deaths from being hit by cars, and similar accidents.

Invasive plants and the lack of sage brush are also threatening their survival.

Here's another on trophy hunting Utah mule deer. $12500 for a five day hunt.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Criminy.
For $12k, I want a helicopter!

a reply to: Phage

Hell yeah and no tents either...air con and huge RV.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Roughin' it.

The sportin' life.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Kandinsky

Roughin' it.

The sportin' life.

Indubitably!!

I was recently under the impression the largest organism was the honey fungus.
And they eat trees for snacks.

originally posted by: ManyMasks
I was recently under the impression the largest organism was the honey fungus.
And they eat trees for snacks.

Maybe. Who wants to read headlines about 'a fairly big organism is dying?'

It has to be three twists of hyperbole and zero salt or people won't get past the headline.