Pando

Aerial outline of Pando, with Fish Lake in the foreground.
Lance Oditt / Friends of Pando, Author provided

Back in 1977, yours truly took a serious road trip to Colorado to check out a design conference in Aspen. After attending said conference, the Four Corners beckoned as the vehicle I had was the VW Camper Bus, the best way, IMHO, to see America as this voyage took well over a month and traversed thousands of miles before returning to CT. In doing the explore, Pando was one destination to remain forever imprinted in my mind because of the fluttering of leaves presenting to the viewer a wonderful shimmer bordering on the magical. When reading this piece from The Conversation, sadness comes to mind in terms of how man screws up the balance of nature, in this case, removing wolves and cougars from the equation, allowing deer populations to explode and eat the trees of Pando without a care in the world as Pando's protected while wolves and cougars are decidedly not. 

The Four Corners region is the red circle in this map. The Four Corners states are highlighted in orange.

In the Wasatch Mountains of the western US on the slopes above a spring-fed lake, there dwells a single giant organism that provides an entire ecosystem on which plants and animals have relied for thousands of years. Found in my home state of Utah, “Pando” is a 106-acre stand of quaking aspen clones.

Although it looks like a woodland of individual trees with striking white bark and small leaves that flutter in the slightest breeze, Pando (Latin for “I spread”) is actually 47,000 genetically identical stems that arise from an interconnected root network. This single genetic individual weighs around 6,000 tonnes. By mass, it is the largest single organism on Earth.

Pando has been around for thousands of years, potentially up to 14,000 years, despite most stems only living for about 130 years. Its longevity and remoteness mean a whole ecosystem of 68 plant species and many animals have evolved and been supported under its shade. This entire ecosystem relies on the aspen remaining healthy and upright. But, although Pando is protected by the US National Forest Service and is not in danger of being cut down, it is in danger of disappearing due to several other factors.

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.

As older trees die or fall down, light reaches the woodland floor which stimulates new clonal stems to start growing, but when these animals eat the tops off newly forming stems, they die. This means in large portions of Pando there is little new growth. The exception is one area that was fenced off a few decades ago to remove dying trees. This fenced-off area has excluded elk and deer and has seen successful regeneration of new clonal stems, with dense growth referred to as the “bamboo garden”.

Well-disguised deer eating Pando shoots. Lance Oditt / Friends of Pando, Author provided

Climate change and diseases are other factors impacting the grove but Bambi's the biggest factor by far.