Post by diane9247 on Oct 18, 2019 8:30:32 GMT
There is a quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) forest in Utah that is perhaps the oldest and largest living organism on earth. Also known as the Trembling Giant, the Pando (Latin for "I spread") is an enormous clone forest with its origin in a single tree. It covers 106 acres "and is estimated to weigh collectively 6,000,000 kilograms (6,600 short tons),[5] making it the heaviest known organism [6][7]." (Source) The age of the root system is uncertain, with estimates up to thousands to 80,000 years. Each tree is really a branch of the root system, as confirmed by DNA research.
No single tree is old, or even middle-aged, as one expert put it. The Pando clone forest is declining. Ranchers are allowed to graze cattle on some of the area, too. So, what happened to cause this change? Cattle would be one guess, but they graze in only a portion of the area and the understory is lacking in the entire Pando. A prime suspect is hunting. Ranchers and recreational hunters have killed most predators in Utah: mountain lions, wolves and bears. Sapling-eating animals have increased as predatory animals have declined. A test area of the forest has been fenced and saplings are present there, but not outside it. (Sources: U.S. Forest Service, Fishlake National Forest; PBS NewsHour. See videos.)
My fairly accurate outline of the Pando clone, and a placemark that will take you to the Street View of it, are in a folder below.
Pando tree folder 2.kmz (1.31 KB)
Incidentally: In the comments below the second video, there is a greeting from an apparent ranger from a "Pando forest" in the village of Moryakovka, Russia. It took about an hour of research to finally locate the village, only successful when I found the Cyrillic spelling (Моряковского) of the name (see Eng. translation of that page). It does check out - there is a forest in the middle of the village.
No single tree is old, or even middle-aged, as one expert put it. The Pando clone forest is declining. Ranchers are allowed to graze cattle on some of the area, too. So, what happened to cause this change? Cattle would be one guess, but they graze in only a portion of the area and the understory is lacking in the entire Pando. A prime suspect is hunting. Ranchers and recreational hunters have killed most predators in Utah: mountain lions, wolves and bears. Sapling-eating animals have increased as predatory animals have declined. A test area of the forest has been fenced and saplings are present there, but not outside it. (Sources: U.S. Forest Service, Fishlake National Forest; PBS NewsHour. See videos.)
My fairly accurate outline of the Pando clone, and a placemark that will take you to the Street View of it, are in a folder below.
Pando tree folder 2.kmz (1.31 KB)
Incidentally: In the comments below the second video, there is a greeting from an apparent ranger from a "Pando forest" in the village of Moryakovka, Russia. It took about an hour of research to finally locate the village, only successful when I found the Cyrillic spelling (Моряковского) of the name (see Eng. translation of that page). It does check out - there is a forest in the middle of the village.
