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One of the World's Largest Organisms is Shrinking (sciencemag.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Pando aspen grove, located in central Utah, is the largest organism on the planet by weight. From the surface, it may look like a forest that spans more than 100 U.S. football fields, but each tree shares the exact same DNA and is connected to its clonal brethren through an elaborate underground root system. Although not quite as large in terms of area as the massive Armillaria gallica fungus in Michigan, Pando is much heavier, weighing in at more than 6 million kilograms. Now, researchers say, the grove is in danger, being slowly eaten away by mule deer and other herbivores -- and putting the fate of its ecosystem in jeopardy. "This is a really unusual habitat type," says Luke Painter, an ecologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis who was not involved with the research. "A lot of animals depend on it."
[...] Scientists first noticed the Pando shrinking in the late '90s. They suspected elk, cattle, and most prominently deer were eating the new shoots, so in the new study Rogers and colleagues divided the forest into three experimental groups. One section was completely unfenced, allowing animals to forage freely on the baby aspen. A second section was fenced and left alone. And a third section was fenced and then treated in some places with strategies to spur aspen growth, such as shrub removal and controlled burning; in other places it was left untreated. The results were surprising: Simply keeping the deer out was enough to allow the grove to successfully recover, the team reports today in PLOS ONE. Even in the fenced-off plots where there was no burning or shrub removal, young trees were thriving.
[...] Scientists first noticed the Pando shrinking in the late '90s. They suspected elk, cattle, and most prominently deer were eating the new shoots, so in the new study Rogers and colleagues divided the forest into three experimental groups. One section was completely unfenced, allowing animals to forage freely on the baby aspen. A second section was fenced and left alone. And a third section was fenced and then treated in some places with strategies to spur aspen growth, such as shrub removal and controlled burning; in other places it was left untreated. The results were surprising: Simply keeping the deer out was enough to allow the grove to successfully recover, the team reports today in PLOS ONE. Even in the fenced-off plots where there was no burning or shrub removal, young trees were thriving.
On my last visit to family in Michigan, deer were everywhere. And they are being pests. I say: larger quotas for hunting season. Same for this area. Venison jerky is very tasty. What say you Eco folks? Save the trees, or save the deer?
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
Time to reintroduce some wolves to the area. They were having similar issues in Yellowstone National Park. Once wolves were brought back into the park, the deer stopped browsing on the trees, causing the forests to regrow, bringing back bird habitat and so forth.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The problem is a lack of apex predators. The deer population has expanded past a sustainable level.
In the past decade, biologists have recorded strong rebounds in the population of trout in Wyoming rivers, less sediment in the water, and higher oxygen levels. Why? Wolves. When the wolves came back to Yellowstone, the behavior of the deer and elk changed. They spend more time on higher ground, and along ridge lines where they are safer from ambush, and much less time browsing in stream beds where they destroy vegetation and stir up sediment. When the apex predators returned, they had a dramatic effect on the entire ecosystem.
A reintroduction of wolves to central Utah would reduce the deer population, but also change their behavior. Another option would be to use biotechnology to bring back the American lion.