The world’s largest living organism that’s being slowly eaten alive | World | News
The world’s largest living organism is slowing being eaten alive after living on Earth for thousands of years.
The Pando is a colony of cloned aspen trees that sprawls across 106 acres between Las Vegas, Nevada and Salt Lake City, Utah in the US.
The genetically identical white-barked trees’ roots are all connected, making them a single organism that weighs roughly 6,000 tonnes.
Despite its staggering size, the Pando faces a much smaller but very real threat: hungry animals.
Paleoecologist Dr Richard Elton Walton wrote in The Conversation: “Overgrazing by deer and elk is one of the biggest worries. Wolves and cougars once kept their numbers in check, but herds are now much larger because of the loss of these predators.
“Deer and elk also tend to congregate in Pando as the protection the woodland receives means they are not in danger of being hunted there … [However] it remains the world’s largest scientifically documented organism.”
Fortunately, the Pando cannot be cut down as its protected by the US National Forest Service, but it could still go extinct due to deer and diseases.
The youngest trees are being killed as overgrazing animals eat the tops off newly forming stems, and the older stems are contracting sooty bark canker, leaf spot, and conk fungal disease.
While the threat posed by deer and elk is an imminent one, a more long-term threat is climate change. It is expected global warming will reduce water supplies and make it harder for the Pando to grow new leaves.
Soaring temperatures and warmer weather occurring earlier in the year also leave the trees exposed to wildfires.
In the 19th century, the Pando survived an influx of European settlers, and since then, it has proved resilient against overgrazing, diseases, and wildfires.
The US Forest System continues to protect the trees, and a collective called the Friends of the Pando is working to make sure the world’s largest organism is preserved.
