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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.
Shoot Bambi.
Problem solved.
Scientists: "Hey this tree thing is shrinking...we believe it's because deer and other animals eat it...let's test that!"
*results show deer eating really was the cause*
Scientists: WE ARE SO SURPRISED THAT WE WERE RIGHT!
Why was that suprising?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So this shrinkage has a natural cause. Well that is life, let it be. Who cares if you lose some stupid record or title.
More scientists pushing an agenda. Sad.
Michael Moore is losing pounds because he hasn't had a hit movie in a while, that's all. This has no connection with global wa--
Oh, wait!
Make up your fucking minds!!!
Check out creimer's video channel!
Controlled burning, unfenced, should have been tried. Much of the west needs to burn much, much more often than it's allowed to. Burning out the undergrowth in a small fire is a fine thing, and should have been allowed with the deer also allowed.
Further, the deer (and cattle) population in the west isn't heatlhy. Much of the grassland is overgrazed due to BLM mismanagement, and many of the wild ungulates are underpredated. Wolf elimination has not been properly replaced with hunting or wolf replacement.
That's the only thing that you could ever rely on. And it will be the only thing until the end of time.
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YouTube is unreliable. Please use this link.
I like in Utah.
1 tree or set of aspen tree isn't an ecosystem. 100 football fields is tiny compared to the mountains. There are millions of aspen in Utah. This one tree isn't that big. Even as part of an ecosystem, trees being eaten by deer is perfectly normal. Deers eating trees _is_ the ecosystem, it is not destroying the ecosystem. Stop with the non-sense.
No, this ecosystem isn't really unusual, plenty of mountains covered in aspen around here. They look nice this time of year. The pines at higher elevations don't change colours.
Yes aspen send out roots that grow up in the fashion of a new tree. While the trees look nice in the mountains (white bark, don't branch as much so less to rake for trunk size), don't plant them in your yard, because the shoots they send out tear up your landscaping.
Let the deer eat the trees. Deer are tasty and it is hunting season. Helping one aspen tree and conjoined clones take over, reduces diversity, and promotes disease.
Is this like a super slow news day?
Glad to hear OP's mom finally went on that diet
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
*Peers down underpants*
Sounds like a problem for wolves. Did they get rid of the wolves?
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...
Take some of that money for a border wall and put one up around Pando. No excuse for building a fence that mule deer can force their way through, or leap over. Then go ahead and declare extended hunting seasons on mule deer while we are at it.
So, let's get this straight. The biggest/heaviest/oldest/whatever massively successful life-form. . .needs our help.
Yeah, right.
Maybe, just maybe, like everything else, it too has cycles of growth and destruction.
Trees are weird.
The tree in your backyard can take ten years to die, and another ten to fall over.
There are species of trees that benefit from forest fires -- yup, fire-retardant wood.
Trees are probably the largest life-forms on the planet.
The smallest seeds of any plant come from trees -- I think they are even smaller than many mammal seeds.
The jump to "we can help!" is a wonderful one, but it really requires that something is wrong in the first place. Not every obstacle is a bad thing -- see "lawnmower parenting".
Maybe there are fewer wolves, more deers, they'll eat down the trees, then the more deer population will roam farther to find more food, then they'll encounter wolves, who'll follow the deer population all the way back, and the trees will thrive again.
Most trees benefit from significant pruning on an infrequent-yet-cyclical basis.
Most of nature works on cycles. I'd wager that absolutely nothing in nature benefits from being static in any way.
Alan Watts agrees. Beauty/Life, when magnified, reveals conflict. A lack of conflict, when demagnified, reveals death.
I should think that historical stats would win-out. It's a successful life-form, don't screw with it!
And let's elk and deer pay for it!
4wdloop
Every one of these junk science initiatives, such as this story, global warming, etc, puts the entire onus on human beings to fix it.
Hey retards, the Earth has been around a lot long than your dumbasses. Yes "scientists" you are all fucking retarded bought and paid for dick lickers. The Earth does not need your grand "scientific" plans (ie fake agenda based politics) to fix anything. The Earth is fully capable of moving on and correcting itself without you self proclaimed experts organizing shit.
If you are a scientist, especially in climate or ecosystems, please kill yourself.
Because in nut-land there can only be one answer to all situations everywhere in the world.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
The obligatory "GLOBAL WARMING!!!!?!!?!!!" hysteria is missing. Please fix.
For those of you unfamiliar with American football, 100 U.S. football fields is about 2.75 Libraries of Congress.
(Kidding aside, it's a bit more than half a million square meters.)
If you actually read the post you're replying to you'd note they talk about something human predation doesnt help with: behavioral change.
Reintroduction of wolves in a number of places, notably, as the GP mentioned, Yellowstone, changes the behavior of prey animals and other members of the ecosystem. Humans just culling deer during hunting season doesnt do that.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
I don't understand this article. I mean, it seems like it's a problem that this organism is shrinking. But, there are some vital facts missing.
1) Is its life in danger?
2) What is the link between this and anthropogenic climate change?
3) By how much must we reduce our carbon output in order to save this organism?
How could the authors leave out the links to climate change?
started shrinking after I read this incredibly stupid story.
If you were to read your history, or documents by the likes of Isaac Newton, you would find that when they got to the limit of their knowledge, they invoked "divine intervention". But the change in human behavior has brought a change in invoking religious deities, so the _new_ deity is "Climate change" or "Global warming", because there has to be a whipping boy, some one to blame, so you blame humanity for you ignorance. NO, I do not know all the answers, but I admit that the cause(s) need investigation to discover the cause of mystery, and expand human knowledge. If you are not willing to have an informed population, then yell "Climate Change" until you can't speak anymore and no one listens (see "The boy who cried Wolf").
Also note that today's Carbon Credits parallel the 15th Century Indulgences, we all must pay for _our_ sins. (I wish I wasn't downwind of China)
Please don't write 6 million Kilograms. You are literally writing 6 million thousand grams. Either write 6 billion grams, or preferably use the SI system as it was intended and express it as 6 Gigagrams.
Wouldn't that be 3000 metric tonnes?
The two largest organisms in the world turn out to be in the US? Sounds like sample bias to me.
While some of you will look at me like I am crazy, a simple yet observable fact can be noted
( and I believe already documented in Yosemite ). Before the wolves introduction, river banks
and the plains that lead up to them were lacking in tree growth. Once the wolves were established,
grazing animals had to look for water in other locations or drink quickly from the past location.
Wolves hunt in the grazing areas.
This, of course, needs to be revalidated since it's been at least 10 years since I've paid any
attention to wolves growth and habits. But I feel that it should still hold.
if someone finds a citation to help validate I will be very grateful.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
That sites dead Jim. Use this instead
Yes a bit over half a million square meters (640000 square yards) which is about 53 ha (132 acres), and they say it is smaller than Armillaria gallica, but that is "only" 15 ha (37 acres): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Or, you know, you could introduce some wolves. Apex predators which lived here for millennia, co-evolved with the deer, a creature that naturally and happily puts some limits on deer numbers. Oh, and the wolves belong, or else the forests and fens aren't actually complete.
Not opposed to deer hunting, just pointing out that the wolves belong on the landscape. If you love nature you ought to have some love for the wolf. Otherwise you are speaking for a somewhat un-natural Nature.
if we eliminated humans too.... .. decisions... decisions... decisions...
Hey guys! The world is not a static place. Things change.
Soap bubbles are very pretty, but they don't last long. Neither does anything else in the world. Appreciate what you see when you see it but stop trying to keep it. You can't keep it and it is a mental disease to try.
Just stop.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
So why is it up to us to choose whether the grove wins, or the animals feeding on it? Isn't this what nature dues? Different organisms are always vying for growth, many times at the expense of others. It's how nature balances itself. Why is this bad news?
Look, it's cold in Utah, and this is just shrinkage! Everyone knows about shrinkage! Things shrink when they get cold!
Don't judge Pando by the unfair example set by shrinkage! Size doesn't matter, Pando has been told!