Pando is a colony of aspen tree trunks that grow from one huge root system. (Photo credit: Lane Naylor/Alamy)
Pando is an ancient aspen (Populus tremuloides) made up of 47,000 genetically identical trunks, or tree stems, connected by a vast underground root network. Each trunk is a clone of its neighbor and traces back to a single seed that began growing about 80,000 years ago during the last ice age.
Pando, which translates as “I spread out” in Latin, is the largest known tree on the planet and the heaviest living organism ever recorded. The colony spans 106 acres (43 hectares) and weighs an estimated 6,500 tons (5,900 metric tons), which is comparable to the weight of 40 blue whales or three times the mass of the world’s largest single-trunk tree, the General Sherman giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in California.
Scientists realized that Pando was a single organism in the 1970s, and geneticists have since confirmed that what appears to be a forest to the untrained eye is actually one giant clone, according to the U.S. Forest Service. A recent DNA analysis of hundreds of tree samples found that Pando could be between 16,000 and 80,000 years old, making it one of the oldest known living organisms on Earth — though the study, published Oct. 24, 2024, in the preprint database bioRxiv, has not yet been peer-reviewed.
According to the Forest Service, some of the Pando stems are over 130 years old, and the plant needs to continually regenerate parts that wither and die. However, this has not happened in recent years.
Pando reproduces asexually, creating clones of itself rather than mixing its DNA with that of other trees. The root system produces genetically identical shoots that grow upward, filling the gaps between trunks and ensuring the plant’s survival for millennia. However, according to a 2018 study, aerial photographs of Pando taken over 72 years show clear signs of decline, including large gaps in the canopy and senescent stems that are not being replaced by younger ones.
The Pando aspen clone covers 106 acres.
“Imagine going to a city of 50,000 people and everyone is 85 years old,” Paul Rogers, an associate professor of ecology at the University of Utah and director of the Western Aspen Alliance, told National Geographic in 2022. “That’s exactly the problem that we’re facing.”
Sourse: www.livescience.com
