Largest Living Organism Is A Fungus

Makarand writes "A single enormous underground fungus found growing in a Canadian forest and estimated to between 2000 and 8500 years old could easily be the largest known living organism on earth. This fungus is believed to have begun its life as a microscopic spore and then grown to cover an area of around an area of 9.65 square kilometers. That it is a single organism was confirmed by collecting samples of the fungus from different parts of the forest and observing their reactions as they were grown together on Petri dishes. Fungal growths have the ability to distinguish their own growths from other fungal individuals."

Comments

Aspen Trees

[asdfx]

It was my understanding that the largest living organism may be an Aspen forest. Aspens reproduce through runners, so it is possible that an entire aspen forest can actually be one organism. I'm sure you can find aspen forests larger than 10 square kilometers, but of course there could be many different plants there. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if it were the oldest.

Re:It thas been rumored..

[Mysticalfruit]

Forest managers may also want to consider which species to focus on during planting and harvesting. "When planting, they may want to introduce less susceptible trees--such as western larch, western white pine, and ponderosa pine--and harvest the more susceptible trees during thinning."

I'm not a forest manager by any stretch of the imagination, but doesn't this seem wrong? So you come into forest that's been living in ecolibrium for thousands of years and decide... "Well, since were gonna be cutting lots of trees down, lets replace them with trees that are less susceptible to this fungus..."

Now granted, you are changing the ecolibrium by cutting down the trees, but I think introducing trees that aren't native to that part of the country or replacing a whole section of forest with one type of tree is just a bad idea...

What a good example of this... goto a place like Quabbin (in Massachusetts) and go into the parts of the forest where they planted row after row of white pine trees and nothing else. Turns out that water perculating through the pine needles on the ground changes the PH level drastically enough that the forests are barren. There's no underbrush, just short pine trees that won't make it to maturity since all the other pine trees have now crowned (only have branches with needles on the tops (which are 50-70 ft above the ground). If you throw down a blanket and sit for a while, you notice a couple of things. Firstly, dead silence. Because the pine trees have pushed out everything else, there's no habitat to support any animals. Secondly, it's cool and dark. Even on a hot summer day, the trees block out so much light it makes it impossible for undergrowth.

A positive note to this is that as these forests age, trees die and make openings and the ecology is starting to change. Also, this makes up a very small percentage of the managed land at a place like Quabbin. I've also come across a couple areas where they've cut down the trees (these are 600' x 500', ripped out the stumps and then used a bulldozer to score up the ground. They then put wires from the trees on either side of the clearing to encourage birds. I've seen a before and after of one of these and you end up with a nice field of wild flowers and a breaks in the forest to encourage diversity.