Scientists working to save Utah anomaly


10 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SEVIER COUNTY -- Utah scientists are trying to organize an emergency rescue effort to save the largest living thing ever discovered anywhere on Earth.

It's known as Pando -- a single organism, living in central Utah, that some scientists say could also be the world's oldest living thing. But Pando is dying and may have only a few more years of glory.

Pando consists of grove of quaking aspen trees spanning 106 acres in the Fishlake National Forest near Fish Lake. Scientists call it an aspen clone, which is essentially a single plant comprised of thousands of trees, connected by underground roots.

Did you know...?
'Pando' -the world's largest living organism
Pando is a clonal colony of a single male Quaking Aspen located in the Fishlake National Forest in Central Utah.
  • Area: 106 acres
  • Estimated interconnected trees: 47,000
  • Estimated weight: 13 million pounds.
  • Estimated age: a few thousand to one million years

When Pando was discovered a few decades ago, scientists named it with the Latin word that means "I spread."

An aspen clone starts with a single seed and spreads by sending out underground sprouts that emerge to become trees.

In the 1970s, scientists tentatively mapped Pando's boundaries. More recently, Utah State University geneticist Karen Mock wondered if Pando's reputation as the world's largest known organism was overblown.

"So we set out to either confirm or deny that," Mock says.

She took DNA samples from 209 trees, mostly within that boundary. Her testing verified what was long suspected.

"Genetically, in fact, Pando is one enormous clone over 100 acres," Mock says, "probably over 47,000 individual trees."

In all, Pando weighs about 13 million pounds, which makes it by far the most massive organism ever found.

"There may well be some larger clones than Pando out there," Mock says, "but it's the largest organism that's been described [by scientists]."


I would call it a crisis ... We're looking at a situation where the whole clone could crash pretty quickly here, within the next few years.

–Paul Rogers, USU ecologist


#rog_quote

As Pando's fame spread, the U.S. Postal Service honored the Utah curiosity as one of "40 Wonders of America." A postage stamp issued in 2006 surely sets some sort of a record for making something very small out of something very big.

But now Pando is in serious trouble, according to ecologist Paul Rogers of Utah State University.

"I would call it a crisis, yes," Rogers says.

When he visited Pando two years ago, the clone seemed reasonably healthy. But when he went back with a team of forestry experts three weeks ago, he was shocked.

"We're looking at a situation where the whole clone could crash pretty quickly here, within the next few years," Rogers says.

The bark of Pando's mature trees shows they're dying from drought and beetles. That's typical of aspen stands throughout the West and, by itself, is not especially worrisome. But disturbingly, small trees and sprouts have vanished from the area spanned by Pando.

"There was no regeneration and there was no mid-story tree," Rogers says. "So if you might think of those as the young ones and the juveniles, there's no young ones to replace those dying trees. So this set off alarm bells."

Rogers says there is an overabundance of deer and elk in the area and he believes the wildlife is feeding on the young sprouts. He also says a small amount of livestock grazing in the area is playing a minor role.

Largest living things?
Other claimants to "largest living thing" have less mass
  • A fungus in Oregon covers 2,200 acres
  • A seaweed in the Mediterranean is 4.3 miles long
  • A Sequoia tree in California has a volume of 52,000 cubic feet
  • Biggest animal ever found was a Blue Whale that weighed 344,000 pounds
Controversies surrounding 'Pando'
  • Some less-studied aspen clones may be larger
  • Pando's roots may be broken and disconnected
  • Undiscovered Redwood colonies may turn out to be more massive

Rogers wants emergency action to fence out the deer and elk. Some government agencies are looking into it, but that strategy is sure to be controversial. Fences would have to be quite high to be effective in holding out deer, and at least one rancher also has grazing rights in the area.

Another complication is that recreationists may have concerns about a high fence in such a scenic area. A U.S. Forest Service campground adjacent to Fish Lake is actually within Pando's biological boundaries.

Rogers says a fence would be effective, though. A small portion of Pando -- less than 10 percent -- is already fenced. That part of the clone is thriving and regenerating.

If Pando does die out or becomes sharply reduced in size, it would be particularly poignant because of the clone's presumed age. Pando is conceivably the oldest living thing ever studied.

A recent study pegging Pando's age at 80,000 years led to media coverage in Europe, but other scientists are skeptical because there's no reliable way to determine the age of an aspen clone.

"People's estimates go from, you know, perhaps low-thousands up to even a million years old," Mock says. "Nobody really knows; and we don't have a very good way of asking that at this point, unfortunately."

Rogers believes that if nothing is done, Pando may shrink to become an ordinary, unspectacular remnant of its former glory.

"So we really need to hold on to this international treasure," Rogers says. "But it's slipping away very quickly."

E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com

---


View Larger Map

Photos

Related links

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
John Hollenhorst

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast