Scientists warn that in an old forest in Utah, there’s a being considered the largest in the world, spanning 42 hectares and estimated to be around 16,000 years old, but it’s dying despite all efforts to preserve it.
A 42.8 Hectare Colony and 16,000 Years, is Dying
In 107 acres of Utah’s National Fishlake Forest, one of the world’s largest organisms extends: a forest of about 47,000 genetically identical aspen trees, all with a single root system. Despite the great efforts, scientists believe that this natural wonder that has lasted for thousands of years will not survive a few decades due to human activity. Similar to the discovery of the largest living being in the sea, 34 meters tall, without light, and alive since Napoleon, Pando’s story is a unique one.
It’s about Pando, as the organism is known (its Latin name means “I spread”), which has been growing for at least 80,000 years. But, forest health has decreased dramatically in recent decades. Pando, according to a recent study, is dying. With a weight of 13 million pounds, Pando is the world’s largest organism by mass. The aspen trees can reproduce by spreading seeds, but more frequently, they send outshoots from their roots and form a mass of trees rightly known as a “clone.”
What Exactly is Pando? And How is it Dying?
Pando Aspen is a vast extension of 40,000 trees, all of which are clones with an identical genetic composition, which means that they are considered a single being. A recent study shows that Pando is not regenerating the way it should. The researchers evaluated 65 plots that had been subjected to different degrees of human efforts to protect the forest: some plots had been surrounded by a fence, others had been surrounded and regulated by interventions, such as the elimination of shrubs and the selective logging of trees, and some were intact.
The team tracked the amount of living and dead trees, along with the amount of new stems. The researchers also examined the feces of animals to determine how the species that graze in the National Fishlake forest could be affecting Pando’s health. The results were quite discouraging. In most forest areas, there are no “young or middle-aged trees,” explains the main author of the study, Paul Rogers, an ecologist at Utah State University. Pando, he adds, is almost completely composed of “older, very old” trees.
This is the Cause of Pando’s Extinction
There are several factors, such as mule deer and cattle, that help Pando’s deterioration. The animals are devouring the shoots of young trees at an alarming pace, leaving the forest with few opportunities to regenerate. Maybe preservation, like that of an animal that had been frozen 46,000 years, can be a possible solution in the future for Pando.
But in reality, the animals are not guilty. According to the study, by virtue of an allocation of pastures of the United States forest service, farmers can let their cattle in Pando for about two weeks a year. Another important problem is the lack of predators in the area; at the beginning of the twentieth century, humans fell aggressively animals such as wolves, pumas, and brown bears, which help keep mule deer at bay. And much of the fences that were erected to protect Pando do not work; mule deer, apparently, are able to jump the fences.
As a result, we are humans the cause of its death. At the end of the 1930s, the treetops played, but in the last 30 to 40 years, holes begin to appear inside the forest, indicating that new trees are emerging to replace those who have died. Fortunately, not everything is lost. There are ways in which humans can intervene to give Pando the time it needs to return to normal, among them, sacrificing voracious deer and placing better fences to keep animals away from young trees.