November 13, 2018 • 42 mins
In Utah, lives a 106-acre stand of Quaking Aspen trees that are all genetically identical because they are all growing from the same massive root system. It’s Pando, the most massive, and almost certainly oldest (by far) organism on Earth.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck, Brian over there, and there's
Jerry and this is Stuff you Should Know. This is
a current contemporary edition. Chuck, Oh, yeah it is. Yeah,
(00:27):
we're talking about Pando and Pando's kind of made the
rounds of the news lately, current contemporary edition of a
topic that could be tens of thousands of years old. Yes,
that's right. Yeah, that's well. Put Actually, did you know
about Pando? Yeah, you saw the news lately. No, I
(00:51):
just previously knew about Pando. Oh. Really, that's kind of
awesome because I knew about the giant mushroom out in Oregon.
Um it, I didn't know about Pando, and now I do,
and we'll get to it. But Panda's Panda is not
doing so hot right now. Spoiler. Yeah, that is a spoiler,
isn't it. It's a sad giant forest. It is a
(01:13):
genetically identical forest. So let's let's spell it out for
But what Pando is you want to Yeah, it's a
it's an aspen forest aspen trees, which, by the way,
far and away the best trees, best looking trees at least. Uh,
it's certainly one of them, depending on what you're out for.
(01:34):
Uh in your as your tree fetish, well, I tend
to like the white papery bark with um black eyes.
That's usually the kind of tree I like. So aspens
it for me. Yeah, So I mean aspens in general,
before we get to what Panda is. They are their
medium sized. Uh, they're deciduous. They're generally between twenty and
(01:57):
eighty feet high, about three to eighteen inches in diameter.
And like you said, they have that bark that's that
sort of smooth greenish white, yellowish white gray or white.
And uh, they have a little green in the bark,
but from chlorophyll, which is kind of interesting for a tree. Yeah,
it's um from what I saw unique among North American
(02:19):
trees that that um aspen bark actually is living. It's
like tissue that actually produces chlorophyll and carries out some
of photosynthesis for the tree, and most other trees don't
do that. But that explains why the bark is so
unique too. Yeah. So the aspen is known for for
a lot of things, but one of the things where
(02:39):
their leaves produced. They're they're really thin and firm, almost round,
about an inch and a half to three inches in diameter,
with a little you know, pointy apex. They look kind
of like a spade in a suit of cards deck
of cards. Yeah, sort of like that. For sure, call
a spade a spade unless it's an aspen leaf. But
(03:01):
the sound that they make is really unique. If you're
in the forest, in a grove of aspen and the
wind kicks up, it's a really unique and i say,
very very calming experience because the stems are flat instead
of round and perpendicular to the flatness of the leaf. Wow,
(03:24):
that was a really great description. So the the leaf
kind of moves around, and then the stem in ways
that leaves typically don't, they kind of trembles in the wind. Yeah,
it's like a fluttery butterfly wing almost. And then because
the leaves are sparse enough, you wouldn't just look at
and be like, look at how sparse that tree is.
But compared to some other trees, say like a maple
(03:45):
or an oak or something, the space in between leaves
is greater, and so that allows the sunlight to kind
of come in through the canopy of the aspen, and
when the wind blows and it gets all of those
leaves going, that has an effect on the sunlight too. Yeah.
So that sound though, is uh specifically Pando is a
quaking aspen. Uh. It just the sound that it creates
(04:08):
is very very unique. It's not even just like a
regular calming of the wind through the trees. It's more
like a quack quack. That's a pretty good aspen quaking
aspen impression. It sounds like a duck. No, that's a
lot of people confuse it for ducks, So it's it's
actually a pretty good aspen. So that's the aspen in general.
(04:30):
But go ahead and drop it, drop it on everyone's
head what Panda is, because it's pretty remarkable. Are you're
letting me do it? Yeah? All right, So Pando is
an aspen forest, an enormous aspen force, a hundred and
six acre aspen force. And you'd say, well, I could
name the woods in my backyard Todd or Jimmy, who
(04:51):
cares somebody gave a name to a forest. But no,
there's something very special about Pando. Pando is not just
a force. Pando is a forest of trees that are
all genetically identical because they all come from one massive
roots structure that forms by mass, the largest organism on Earth. Yeah, yeah,
(05:14):
that's pando thirteen million pounds uh tons. And uh. While
we would love to say every single one of these,
maybe up to fifty thou trees is connected literally, some
of them might not be. But we did learn through
this research that you can be uh cut off if something,
(05:39):
you know, happens to cut you off from your from
the roots of your neighbor, you can still be considered
part of that because you're still genetically identical, right, yes,
and so um Quaking aspens are kind of unique at
least as far as trees go, but not necessarily as
far as plants go, and that they reproduce through something
(06:00):
called vegetative reproduction. And it's pretty straightforward stuff. If you've
ever seen, like saying, augustine grass or a strawberry or
something like that. It just sends out like a stem
or something like that, and then the stem, once it
gets to certain points, starts to shoot down roots and
then it starts to grow like another section of the plant.
But it's still kind of like a new plant growing
(06:21):
out of the original plant's arm. It's all the same plan.
It's one big organism. Um. And that's how Pando has
spread through this vegetative reproduction. Yeah. And this can happen underground,
like in the case of Pando, it's not like you
see this, uh, like horizontal fence of tree branches all
along the ground. It's actually roots underground. Sometimes it can
(06:45):
go like a hundred feet and say, I think I'd
like to grow up now, Yeah, it feels like a
good spot. Why don't you grow up? And the little
sprout called the ramit says, I will watch, and Pando
goes whoa with the light. Yes, and it looks like
its own tree. But uh, whether connected or not, it's
(07:08):
usually connected. Um, it's it's the same tree. Right. So um,
you said something that some of the trees in Pando
might not actually be part of Pando. There's a couple
of ways that can happen. Like you said. One, they
could be cut off physically, but even still it's still
considered part of the same group of trees, the same organism.
(07:29):
And when you're talking about a like a stand of
genetically identical aspen trees, they're called a clone, like a
pack of them or stand of them. It's called a clone,
so you can have physically cut off, genetically identical trees
that are still considered part of the same clone. But
(07:51):
being a tree, pando Um can also reproduce sexually. And
aspens are also kind of unique or peculiar in that
they can reproduce vegetatively, but they also reproduce sexually, but
they don't have the equipment for both sides of sexual
reproduction on the same tree. So a tree is either
(08:13):
male or female, and in the case of pando, Pando's
a male. But that's pretty interesting too. I think if
that we're talking about like the biggest organism on Earth,
the most massive organism on Earth, but to know that
it has a name and that it's a male just
makes it all that more endearing, you know. Yeah, And
like you said, even though they do have flowers and sexes,
(08:36):
it's they almost always reproduce vegetatively. Yeah, I think it's
starting to become clear that they actually produce sexually more
than we realize. But for a long time they're like,
that's basically it for aspen. Yeah, and it's uh, like
there are plenty of aspen grows and clones that are impressive,
(08:57):
but this is one where every thing kind of came together,
and we'll talk about all those different things, but everything
kind of came together in the right way just to
create something this massive, Right, Yeah, Panda lucked out. In
other words, yeah, they're not normally this impressive and large.
No huh um. One of the things about like a
(09:19):
clone of aspen trees like Pando is that in one
of the reasons why they can get so huge is
one that vegetative growth, of vegetative reproduction. But also when
you have, like when you're covering a hundred and six
acres of land, you've got a like a lot of
different resources available to you, and you're interconnected, you're just
(09:42):
one organism. And this whole thing makes me think, like, Chuck,
what are we really talking about when we're talking about pando.
We're talking about the collection of individual trees that we
typically see as like as individuals. Are we really talking
about like the roots system? Is that the real organism
that we're referring to? Are you asking a little bit?
(10:02):
I think it's both. It's all the same, right, Okay,
I guess it is all the same, but but you
tend to think of like an organism is like, you know,
a tree is a thing, but a whole bunch of
trees that are all connected to a root system that's
just different in some weird way that I can't quite
put my finger on. Yeah. I like to think that
they're all just holding hands underground, right, but it's all
(10:23):
just one hand. Yeah. But like you were saying, uh,
like the benefits of something like this is that they
are they do have different access to different things depending
on where they are in that forest. So like there
may be you know, three or four big old trees
down near the water that are just sucking up water
(10:44):
and sharing it with the trees near them. They can
just send that right down the old shared root pipeline
and say, I know you're thirsty over there, so why
don't you enjoy this spring water? Yeah, exactly, it's delicious
spring water. Um. They can also shuttle newt treents around
pando Can from one area to another, and so as
a result, you'll find aspens in some like really surprising places.
(11:07):
They're really hearty, and they really they show up everywhere
from like kind of wet rainforesty type areas to semi
arid um kind of brush land, Like they'll grow everywhere.
And they have a huge range too. You can find
aspen in North America from Alaska down to Mexico and
from Vancouver over to Maine. So they have a pretty good,
(11:29):
pretty good range. Uh, and they've grow just about everywhere. Yeah,
but they need a lot of sunshine. The one thing
that um, the aspen does not like a shade, and
as their kryptonite it kind of is um. Moist soil
is the best. Plenty of sunshine and uh, gravelly slopes,
(11:51):
sandy sandy ground is great. But they are pretty um,
pretty hardy as long as as long as you don't
have anything big that's creating a canopy nearby to block
out that sunshine. Yeah, because think about you've got some
shoots that grew up and they're like, oh, I'm in
a semi arid area, now i could use some water
over here, and it just sends it from the wetlands.
(12:12):
I just think that's amazing. Josh Love, Pando Chuck Love
message break. Okay, let's do it then. All right, Well,
now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
to learn a thing or two from Josh Pan Chuck.
It's stuff you should know, all right, than alright, Chuck,
(12:52):
So we could probably stop here, and I just I'd
stand by my statement about loving PANDO. I think PANDO
is just an amazing inter seing organism. But I think
like all aspen stands are now all clones of aspen
let's think they're really cool. But we haven't even begun
to scratch the surface and how interesting these things are. Yeah,
(13:13):
you want to talk about fire, I do, because this
is one of the reasons why I love earth science,
Like everything fits together, and everything has an explanation, and
if you mess with one thing over here, something else
way over here goes weird. I just love earth science
for that and this is a good example of it. Yeah,
so in our forest fires episode, which I think was
(13:34):
a great one, and go back and revisit that if
you want to learn more about this kind of thing.
But fire, as it happens, forest fires are kind of
great for aspens. Yeah, they thrive in fire pretty much
not in fire. It's a little little complicated, but it's
(13:55):
actually very simple. So um, So there's a few things
that happened like with fire. Supposedly, a wildfire when it
reaches an aspen stand will will sometimes die out because
aspens actually don't burn very well. They have really wet leaves,
and their bark says pretty moist too, and so does
their branches, So they don't burn well. Um, but they
(14:17):
are sensitive to fire, and that they've kind of seems
like kind of evolved to respond to fire, but not
necessarily in the ways you think like they can burn,
especially their canopy, their tops can burn pretty pretty badly.
But the way that they react to fire is if
fire comes through and wipes out some of their sprouts,
those little ramlets, the seedlings basically that grow up from
(14:39):
the roots system. If fire wipes some of those out,
those things send like a hormonal signal to the rest
of the tree saying we've got this area covered. We
don't need any competition, just keep the sprouts in check here.
When when those things are gone and those hormonal signals
are lost to the tree responds by shooting up many,
many times the number of sprout that were lost to
(15:00):
fire and repopulates an area that's been ravaged by fire
very very quickly and comes to dominate it for the
next hundred, two hundred, possibly thousand years. Yeah, twenty or
thirty years is all it takes. Uh, if an area
has been wiped out by wildfire to get that aspen
grove is plentiful or even more so than it was before. Uh.
(15:24):
And they do this because, uh, well, the conifer is
sort of the enemy. We like to think all trees
like each other, and they probably do emotionally, but the
conifer is what really provides that that upper canopy that
that is really bad for the aspen. So during a wildfire,
(15:45):
the aspen is fire resistant to a certain degree because,
like you said, with the wetness of the leaves and
twigs and branches. But those conifers go up like a match,
so they're killed off first. A lot of times, like
you said that, the aspens are just left and they're great.
We we got rid of those jerky conifers over there,
and now we're good. But even if it does kill
(16:06):
it all out, the aspens grow up a lot faster
than the new conifers do, so they basically sort of
beat them to the punch post wildfire, right exactly. And
not just wildfires. They show up after like mud slides
and rock slides and landslides and avalanches and everything you
can think of that could wipe out a forest. You're
(16:26):
gonna if if it's within the aspens range, you're gonna
find aspen there first. And you know, we were talking
about how one of the things about it is that quaking,
trembling sunlight that allows filter light through well. That obviously
allows saplings of um aspen to shoot up and grow.
And and as you were saying, when the conifers come in,
(16:47):
they block out that sunlight, and so the aspen seedlings
don't have any kind of chance at growing up as
the conifers start to uh interlope through the borders. I
think that right interloped through the borders of the clone,
the aspen clone, and then eventually make their way further
and further in. And then if everything's going well for
(17:08):
the aspen, and as is the case with nature, fire
comes along wipes all the conifers out and the cycle
starts again. And through this an aspen clone can live
for a very very long time as long as there's
a cycle of fire that doesn't come too frequently and
keep the aspen from growing back or come to infrequently
(17:31):
and allow the conifers to really take over and kill
off any new growth in the aspen clone. Yeah, if
it wasn't for like if America, if North America had
never had humans here and it was just allowed to
do whatever happens, Uh, there would be a lot more fire.
You know. Fire suppression is a is a human thing
because we like to put out fires for the most part.
(17:53):
And if that had never happened, the United States would
have I don't want to say it would be largely aspen,
but there would be a lot of aspen forest and
forest grows, yeah, and the ones that are around still today,
it would be in a lot better shape because I mean,
just another way to put it is aspen grows need
fire to thrive. Yeah, just as simple as that. It's
(18:17):
really really interesting. So um, one of the things that
I ran across I kept seeing was that a lot
of the and I got the impression that was like
old time or stuff. And I was right that you
can you can tell one aspen grow from another, like
a clone from another clone, because they'll grow up against
each other and sometimes intermingle. Um. Sometimes in the spring
(18:38):
you can see the leaf formation kind of come out
in certain ways, but really in the fall you can see,
you know, one aspen clone from another one will have
like a like a brilliant gold other will be like
a scarlet red or something like that. And then in
the fall you can kind of see the boundaries between
one aspen clone and another aspen clone. And for many
(18:59):
of myn of years, that's just how they did it.
And then genetics came along and they said, yeah, you're
wrong about a lot of this. Yeah. So like the
old timey researchers would say, look at those twenty five
trees all grouped together. They have the same exact bright
yellow color. Uh so that's that's all one clone. And
(19:20):
these guys over here red. But like you said, when
they actually finally got the technology to check, that was
not necessarily the case, and they'd walk away like kind
of dust in their hands off and fine, going off
to the no after before they're like, it was a
fine days work using my peepers to to tell one
clone apart from another. Peepers. I know that word. I
(19:44):
came across it again. You remember that episode. Oh yeah,
I think that's one of the worst slang terms of
all times. Peepers, one of the worst non offensive slang
terms of all time. Yeah, that's a good that's a
good call leaf peepers. Yeah, and that the whole thing
the genetic zo is. For a while there that was
causing a little bit of uh, well, I mean just confusion.
(20:06):
I guess it's not. It wasn't like the end of
the world or anything, but it was a little confusing
because at one point, like you know, thirty years ago,
they the scientists were there watching what they thought was
that single clone of aspen, and they thought, oh my god,
we've just learned something. This this this tree or this
you know, this clone has actually changed sex. It's amazing.
(20:30):
It's producing pollen this year and last year it produced flowers,
and oh my god, what a breakthrough. And then now
that we have genetic testing, they're like, oh no, that's
actually two different clones. Yeah, when they started looking at
at um some of those trees more closely, like, yeah,
they look alike, but actually this is they're not genetically identical.
They're not part of the same Aspen clone, but they
(20:54):
could still be a direct descendant from that Aspen clone,
because remember and aspens reproduced. They can do it one
of two ways, vegetatively, which produces trees that are genetically
identical to other trees that have sprouted up from the
same root system, or they can do it sexually um,
and the seeds that come out are um are not
(21:16):
genetically identical, So you can have offspring and genetic genetically
identical clones of the same tree all intermingled in the
same little area. It's pretty fascinating, it is. Uh. And
as far as age of these things, it kind of
depends um on where you are. Like, usually an aspen
(21:37):
tree won't live more than a hundred and fifty years,
occasionally up to two hundred in in Colorado, where Panda is.
I just love saying his name. I know, it's so cute.
It's close to Panda, that's why. That's definitely why. But oh,
it's nice of fat on the end, so it looks
like it's got some chubby cheeks you just want to pinch.
(21:58):
Probably does. As far as as Panda goes in Colorado,
they usually don't get to be more than about seventy
five years old. And it's not like you can go
to a clone either and pluck out what you think
is the oldest tree and say this is how old
the clone is, because it may be oh yeah, it
may be the newest tree. That's why I'm like, Okay,
so is the organism really the root system if a tree,
(22:21):
if a tree just like dies. I think around the
area where Pando grows in Utah, uh, I think on
the Colorado Front Range is what it's called. They said
Colorado Emit Colorado Front Range, Colorado Front Range, so um,
in that area they usually live that well we call trees,
but what are really just stems growing up from Pando's
(22:42):
root system. Those things live for about seventy five years.
The oldest aspens live for about two hundred years. Pando
is way way older than that, even by the most
conservative estimates. Yeah, I mean they say thirteen thousand years
old to eighty thousand years old. Yeah, and I think
(23:03):
thirteen thousand is really hedging bets because they're like, well,
that's about when the last ice age ended, so Pando
probably couldn't have lived through that. But I was looking
at ice sheet maps. There was not an ice sheet
anywhere near where Panda's going. So it's it's entirely possible
with a hardy and resilient as um aspen stands are
(23:25):
that Pando is as far far older than that. You
mean the ice sheet map on your bedroom wall. He
just got out of bed, went let me look at
this again. Well, you haven't been over for a while.
I haven't pasted to the ceiling, so I don't even
oh man, just lay there in point. I'm like, you're
really getting efficiencies the laurentide kind of day. That's great. Yeah,
(23:47):
uh yeah. So I mean and this one article sent
over the said in principle, clones may even be essentially immortal.
That's you know. But yeah, they've they hedged it within principle,
like and it can die from disease like aspen or
they're not like indestructible. There's all sorts of things that
can hurt them. Because of their really soft bark, they're
(24:08):
susceptible to boring insects and diseases that can come from
that um. A lot of birds that bore live in
in aspen um, which I think is not bad for him.
I'm not sure, but there so they can die. There's
a lot of things that can kill an aspen growth.
But if if everything was going right, where there's no
(24:29):
reason that it should die, there's no like a human,
we can do everything right and we're still going to
die someday. There's like a certain there's a certain number
of times our cells are going to divide, and they're
gonna stop, and we're eventually going to run out of
dividing cells and then we die. Right, that's not necessarily
the case with an Aspen clone. That's why they're saying,
like in principle they are technically immortal, or they may
(24:51):
be technically immortal, and they think that possibly Pando is
more than eighty thousand years old. That's the high end.
Although there's a and uh at the University of Michigan,
who's who's saying something like a million. I'm not back
in that one. I love that. I'll go as high
as eighty thousand and uh. Dr Barnes, we don't mean
(25:12):
to call you a kook. We're just joking. We were joking.
All right. Well, let's uh take a break, hire an attorney,
and we're going to talk about why why pandos now
in trouble, which is very very sad. Right after this, well,
now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
to learn a thing or two from Josh Pam Chuck.
(25:35):
It's stuff you should know, all right, all right, Chuck,
(25:57):
Like you said, I spoiled it for everybody already. But
Pando is dying. Yeah, Um, that's not an overstatement. Yeah,
it's very sad. Here's what's going on, and here's what
can go on really to any I mean Pando special,
but any any clone like Thisando is very special. It's uh.
There are a few things that can happen. We already
(26:17):
talked a little bit about, like you know, birds and
and blight and stuff like that. There's also disease. Uh,
but human interaction has had a major toll on these forests.
In the eighties and nineties, there were, of course, people
were able to build homes within where Pando is, in
(26:38):
this hundred and six acres. Uh. People also want to
go see these things that like, all right, well let's
let's put a campground there as well. And if you
want to campground, you want toilets, and you want plumbing,
and you want picnic tables and roads, roads and parking
lots and stuff like that and water lines and all
of this stuff. Even though they do as good a
(26:59):
job as they can at pres ovation, um, it all
takes its toll little by little with every new you know,
parking lot laid down on something like Pando. So um,
all of these things being built in the middle of Pando, right,
in the middle of Pando Um. They have had their effect.
But it's probable that Panda is kind of like, let's
(27:21):
just grow around you. It's fine. I'm not happy about it, human,
but I know you don't know any better. I'm Pando.
I'll just grow around. So that's fine. That's not what
it is. That was. That's so that's strike one. But
humans are not off the hook because it turns out
that we're doing things in other ways and that whole
like Earth science, messing with something over here has having
(27:43):
these effects over here. That's going on with Pando right
now as well. Yeah, because one of the major threats,
aside from wildfires that we're putting out is uh. Herbivores,
deer and elk specifically love to eat the those tiny
little baby aspen that's sprout up from the ground from well,
(28:05):
I was about to say, from Pando. Uh. They eat
them so fast it never almost has a chance to
become part of Fando, right, like Pando doesn't. They are
doing studies now. Panda is old. They're old trees. It's
a bunch of senior citizens hanging out holding hands. There's
not a youngster among them, right, And that's not good,
(28:25):
whether it's a human civilization or population or a population
of uh, you know, aspen clones. You want like all
stages of life. You want mature trees, middle aged trees,
young trees, saplings, you want all that. And if you
have nothing but old trees, those old trees, remember they
only live about seventy five years, so as they start
(28:47):
to die, that means Pando is dying. As as long
as an aspen clone is replacing itself, it's fine, it's healthy.
But if it's not, then it's in big, big trouble.
And apparently Pando is in big, big trouble and has
been for some years now because of overgrazing and over browsing,
not just with like cattle, like grazing cattle, which apparently
(29:09):
happens on Pando land, but also UM the mule, deer
and elk populations are supposedly booming in Utah in the
area where Pando lives. Yeah, and they're they're you know,
they're able to prove this now, uh. In a couple
of ways, UM in the US Forestry Service clear cut
fifteen full acres of Pando right in the middle of
(29:32):
it and fenced off about a third of this left
the other two thirds, uh, just to you know, do
do what it would do. And the fenced part came
back really healthy, which was a very clear indicator that
because uh, there wasn't anything there to eat these little
seedlings that pop up that that's the big diff Um.
(29:54):
So that was uh. In two thousand thirteen, they fenced
off and area from Uh. I love the word ungulates.
It's any kind of hoofed animal, whether natural or just
you know, someone's cattle, because like you said, how many
how many weeks a year do they allow cattle? A
couple of weeks? Two weeks? But I think like each
rancher gets two weeks there. I don't think it's like, hey,
(30:18):
everybody bring your cattle to Panda land for like a
two week period, although I could be wrong. Pando pandas
like please please don't not again. Yeah. So in two
thousand thirteen, they they fenced off this area and are
gonna leave it that way. And this is all part
of a study. UM. A nonprofit group of conservationists got
(30:39):
together with the US Force Service to kind of check
out what happens. And then this year that's why it's
what's current, Like you said, at the beginning, these these
results are coming in and it's pretty obvious what's going on.
It is. So number one, it's the it's the over browsing,
especially among elkin mule deer UM. But also number two, uh,
(31:02):
it's the um the fact that the fences aren't necessarily
working as well. So like, the fences are doing the
best that they can and the unfenced area is in
even bigger trouble. But even the fences they're using, the
mule deer are able to hop over and eat these
shoots um. And so you think, okay, well that's the
(31:23):
mule deer's fault. Let's just kill a bunch of mule deer. Well,
the problem is and this is so we've i should say,
we've reached like a point of contention here because the
guys um led by the researchers, led by a guy
at the university or Utah State University, Paul Rodgers. He
is a an ecologist, and he's clearly he's among a
(31:44):
group who are saying the Utah fish and wildlife are
are they are overpopulating the area with elk and mule
deer because they make money from hunting licenses and as
like the more l can mule deer there are, the
more hunting of those things that can go on, the
more the state UM Wildlife Commission can take in hunting licenses, right,
(32:09):
hunting license fees, Yeah, revenue, And so the state is like, no,
that's not it. Actually elk and a mule deer are
lower than ever. Whether that's the case or not, whether
they're being managed in correctly or not, it does seem
pretty clearly that at the very least overbrowsing by mule
deer and elk is a major major factor, if not
the dominant factor in what's killing panda off. Yeah, and
(32:33):
this goes back even further because, like you were saying,
touch one thing here and it affects something over there.
This can even be separated by like a hundred years.
Go back to the early nineteen hundreds, when people in
this country, uh, in North America as a whole hunted wolves,
hunted mountain lines and mountain lions, hunted grizzly bears. Uh
(32:53):
what is what are they? They are animals that eat
mule deer and elk. So it's it's called an effect
here a hundred plus years later, where there aren't a
lot of apex predators out there keeping these helping to
keep these deer population in check. So there's been talk
here and there. I don't I mean, they're not gonna
do it now that they said unequivocally. They're not like,
(33:15):
should we reintroduce wolves to the ecosystem because that's a
very national natural predator prey cycle that goes on that
is not happening right now. No. And I mean it's
like hunters coal uh, that is to say, shoot mule
deer and elkins stuff like that. So the population, it's
(33:35):
not like it's getting out of hand. And if it
ever did, they would just have like open season on
these things, right, And if it ever did, they would
just sell more hunting licenses. I don't think that that's
the issue. What the what Paul Rodgers and some of
his fellow A collegists are saying is that if the
presence of like wolves and bears and mountain lions is
known in an area, the elkin, the mule deer, they're
(33:59):
not just gonna stay in one place for very long.
They're going to constantly be on the move. And so
even if they are going through with a big population
eating a bunch of shoots off of something like Pando.
They're not going to be doing it in the same place,
so the panda will be able to recover over time
because that browsing will be distributed. Whereas now it's like,
(34:20):
I don't feel like going ten miles down the mountain.
I'm gonna stay right here and just keep eating Pando
until Pando dies. Yeah, there's no wolves, right, there's no bears,
or least not enough to to scare me and my
my gang here. Yeah. Yeah, they call it an ecology
of fear. I've never heard of that, haven't either, And yeah,
it's it's really interesting though that they and and I
(34:43):
guess it takes you know, a hundred plus years too
to create this kind of uh almost called it a culture.
It kind of is sort of there's a culture among
these herds of hooved animals to where they're just like
you said, They're like, no, you know, there's nothing around
here to hunt me, So I'm just gonna look at
all this tasty aspen babies. I'm gonna eat them all. Yeah,
(35:04):
what am I chump? I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, it's
really interesting, it is. And then there's I and like
it's not like I'm a wildlife ecologist or a biologist
or have any formal training in it whatsoever. But I
tend to think that it's not just over browsing. I
think that they the fact that there are people that
live in Pando means that the Forest Service says, well,
(35:28):
we we have to control wildfire. You don't let wildfire
go any longer. Um, And so then you've got conifer
um forest coming in moving in on Pando too. I
think that that's probably part of the issue as well.
So the key is, Chuck, is to put up better
fences and let the fires go. Yeah, burn, baby, burn burn,
(35:49):
Just don't burn the fences down. Yeah. I don't know
what they were doing with those little three foot fences anyway, No,
because a mule deer just hops right over, just so easy. Yeah,
it's all very sad. Mean, panda is such an amazing
I don't know, such an amazing thing in this in
this country. And it's going bye bye. It is it is,
it's it is said, um yeah, and I mean part
(36:12):
of it is like, well, yes it's I mean, it's
an aspen stand. But it's possibly the oldest and definitely
the most massive organism on Earth, which seems like it
should get like a little extra attention just for that,
you know. But then you ask like, well, is that
just dumbly sentimental? Why not save everything? Why? Why why
just focus all of your attention on this one thing?
(36:33):
And then the other part of me says, well, if
you focus attention on this one thing, you come to
realize that all this other stuff is in danger as well,
and you start to care. So maybe pandas like just
the poster child for getting people into ecology a little more,
kind of like the Great Barrier Reef, you know, Superstar
of the Ocean that is uh kind of quickly going away. Yeah,
(36:57):
it's all sad. I'm depressed now. Yeah, I mean too.
I was kind of hoping to end this on a
high note. Well, you know, despite what happens to Pando,
it's not like this is the death of the the
aspen in North America. This is Pando. Yeah, there are
plenty of them in uh. And I encourage you to
go sit among the trees when the breeze is blowing
(37:19):
in the fall and tell us your experience. It's it's amazing.
It's a light and sound show. Nice. Um, I got
a couple more things. Do you want to talk about
some of the other biggest or oldest stuff on Earth? Sure?
So I mentioned that giant mushroom in Oregon. Isn't that
how they say Oregon? Oregon? Oregon? Um? It is an
(37:44):
Armillaria Ostoyer specimen and it covers acres. PANDO covers a
hundred and six This covers acres of Mallard National Forests
in Oregon, UM. But they only think that it's just
a couple of thousand years old, and that's just that's
just area that's not mass. Yeah. I think I learned
(38:08):
about PANDO a few years ago when I was trying
to find out the oldest tree. There's like a sequoia
that's pretty old, right or is it the biggest? You know.
I can't remember where I ended up as far as
that result goes, but I know that's where I found
out about PANDO. And I was like, what And there
are some old trees. There's like some bristle comb pines
(38:30):
in California that are about five thousand years old. That's
pretty old for a tree. There's a creas salt bush
that's at least eleven thousand, seven hundred years old. And
then have you heard of um glass sponges. There are
glass sponges. They live in the water off of Antarctica.
(38:51):
They lived to about fifteen thousand years old. A sponge.
Who'd have thought, you know, amazing? You got anything else?
I got nothing now? Okay, well then, uh, we'll just
put out a call for everybody to save Pando. Okay, yes,
send us. Uh if you've actually been to Pando or
in in Pando on Pando on Pando, Yeah, in Pando
(39:16):
that's gross. Uh, send us. I want to I want
to hear about this experience. Okay, yes, please to Uh.
And in the meantime, how about a listener mail. Yeah,
I'm gonna call this. UM, we got a couple on
robin Hood. I'll read these these couple in the next
(39:37):
two episodes. Hey guys, Uh, every episode you release, it's
done to such a high standard. It's clear that the
true effort and love of the job is poured into
every session in the studio. You might get a little
too much credit. Joey Uh. The episode on robin Hood
especially piqued my interest, though as I am from Nottingham
sure myself and I live only about ten miles a
(40:00):
from rain Worth. The area of Sherwood Forest where Robin
Hood and his men are fabled to have resided or
at least spent a lot of their time in this
area is the major oak of Sherwood Forest, which is
said to be the location they chose for shelter. It
is between eight hundred to a thousand years old and
is now held up by a series of poles due
(40:21):
to his age and bad health. Interesting. Maybe they should
do that with Bando. I think I saw that tree.
Actually I saw something on it. Oh yeah, when doing
panda research would have been like, gosh, this trees everywhere. Uh.
The episode was so well done. You taught me new information.
Even though I've been to the woods and Visitor Center
(40:42):
a few times, I have taken my children as well,
and they also love the legend myth of Robin Hood.
My father in law happens to be called Robin and
resides in the Sherwood district, so I sometimes dropped little
hints to my young children that he could possibly be
the Robin of Sherwood. I lost all credibility with them.
(41:04):
They love it, even though I think they're onto the ruse.
Really really looking forward to your legendary Halloween episode. I'm
a huge fan of horror and I am actually in
a horror punk rock band called Headstone Horrors based in Nottingham, UK.
So this is an amazing busy and exciting time of
the year for us. I bet they book a lot
(41:25):
of gigs in October. Don't you think I would guess
so Headstone Horrors, I would guess January is not a
huge month for him. No, no or Christmas or Christmas season.
Everybody Headstone Horrors Christmas album. Uh, It's an amazing busy
and exciting time of year for us. I would love
to send you a C D T T shirts if
(41:46):
you like. Just let me know your size as you want,
and I'll pack them up and send them on their way.
That is from Joey Gathercole of shere would, son of
Robin perhaps father of incredible this Children. Well thanks a lot, buddy,
that was fantastic. I appreciate the offer for the shirt.
(42:07):
I think we will be taking you up on that. Uh.
And in the meantime, if you out there want to
get in touch with us to let us know you're interesting.
Amazing story of how you fib to your children, We'd
love to hear that you can go to stuff you
Should Know dot com and find all of our social links.
I'm also at the Josh clark Way dot com and
(42:27):
you can send me, Chuck and Jerry All an email
to Stuff podcast how stuff Works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck, Brian over there, and there's
Jerry and this is Stuff you Should Know. This is
a current contemporary edition. Chuck, Oh, yeah it is. Yeah,
(00:27):
we're talking about Pando and Pando's kind of made the
rounds of the news lately, current contemporary edition of a
topic that could be tens of thousands of years old. Yes,
that's right. Yeah, that's well. Put Actually, did you know
about Pando? Yeah, you saw the news lately. No, I
(00:51):
just previously knew about Pando. Oh. Really, that's kind of
awesome because I knew about the giant mushroom out in Oregon.
Um it, I didn't know about Pando, and now I do,
and we'll get to it. But Panda's Panda is not
doing so hot right now. Spoiler. Yeah, that is a spoiler,
isn't it. It's a sad giant forest. It is a
(01:13):
genetically identical forest. So let's let's spell it out for
But what Pando is you want to Yeah, it's a
it's an aspen forest aspen trees, which, by the way,
far and away the best trees, best looking trees at least. Uh,
it's certainly one of them, depending on what you're out for.
(01:34):
Uh in your as your tree fetish, well, I tend
to like the white papery bark with um black eyes.
That's usually the kind of tree I like. So aspens
it for me. Yeah, So I mean aspens in general,
before we get to what Panda is. They are their
medium sized. Uh, they're deciduous. They're generally between twenty and
(01:57):
eighty feet high, about three to eighteen inches in diameter.
And like you said, they have that bark that's that
sort of smooth greenish white, yellowish white gray or white.
And uh, they have a little green in the bark,
but from chlorophyll, which is kind of interesting for a tree. Yeah,
it's um from what I saw unique among North American
(02:19):
trees that that um aspen bark actually is living. It's
like tissue that actually produces chlorophyll and carries out some
of photosynthesis for the tree, and most other trees don't
do that. But that explains why the bark is so
unique too. Yeah. So the aspen is known for for
a lot of things, but one of the things where
(02:39):
their leaves produced. They're they're really thin and firm, almost round,
about an inch and a half to three inches in diameter,
with a little you know, pointy apex. They look kind
of like a spade in a suit of cards deck
of cards. Yeah, sort of like that. For sure, call
a spade a spade unless it's an aspen leaf. But
(03:01):
the sound that they make is really unique. If you're
in the forest, in a grove of aspen and the
wind kicks up, it's a really unique and i say,
very very calming experience because the stems are flat instead
of round and perpendicular to the flatness of the leaf. Wow,
(03:24):
that was a really great description. So the the leaf
kind of moves around, and then the stem in ways
that leaves typically don't, they kind of trembles in the wind. Yeah,
it's like a fluttery butterfly wing almost. And then because
the leaves are sparse enough, you wouldn't just look at
and be like, look at how sparse that tree is.
But compared to some other trees, say like a maple
(03:45):
or an oak or something, the space in between leaves
is greater, and so that allows the sunlight to kind
of come in through the canopy of the aspen, and
when the wind blows and it gets all of those
leaves going, that has an effect on the sunlight too. Yeah.
So that sound though, is uh specifically Pando is a
quaking aspen. Uh. It just the sound that it creates
(04:08):
is very very unique. It's not even just like a
regular calming of the wind through the trees. It's more
like a quack quack. That's a pretty good aspen quaking
aspen impression. It sounds like a duck. No, that's a
lot of people confuse it for ducks, So it's it's
actually a pretty good aspen. So that's the aspen in general.
(04:30):
But go ahead and drop it, drop it on everyone's
head what Panda is, because it's pretty remarkable. Are you're
letting me do it? Yeah? All right, So Pando is
an aspen forest, an enormous aspen force, a hundred and
six acre aspen force. And you'd say, well, I could
name the woods in my backyard Todd or Jimmy, who
(04:51):
cares somebody gave a name to a forest. But no,
there's something very special about Pando. Pando is not just
a force. Pando is a forest of trees that are
all genetically identical because they all come from one massive
roots structure that forms by mass, the largest organism on Earth. Yeah, yeah,
(05:14):
that's pando thirteen million pounds uh tons. And uh. While
we would love to say every single one of these,
maybe up to fifty thou trees is connected literally, some
of them might not be. But we did learn through
this research that you can be uh cut off if something,
(05:39):
you know, happens to cut you off from your from
the roots of your neighbor, you can still be considered
part of that because you're still genetically identical, right, yes,
and so um Quaking aspens are kind of unique at
least as far as trees go, but not necessarily as
far as plants go, and that they reproduce through something
(06:00):
called vegetative reproduction. And it's pretty straightforward stuff. If you've
ever seen, like saying, augustine grass or a strawberry or
something like that. It just sends out like a stem
or something like that, and then the stem, once it
gets to certain points, starts to shoot down roots and
then it starts to grow like another section of the plant.
But it's still kind of like a new plant growing
(06:21):
out of the original plant's arm. It's all the same plan.
It's one big organism. Um. And that's how Pando has
spread through this vegetative reproduction. Yeah. And this can happen underground,
like in the case of Pando, it's not like you
see this, uh, like horizontal fence of tree branches all
along the ground. It's actually roots underground. Sometimes it can
(06:45):
go like a hundred feet and say, I think I'd
like to grow up now, Yeah, it feels like a
good spot. Why don't you grow up? And the little
sprout called the ramit says, I will watch, and Pando
goes whoa with the light. Yes, and it looks like
its own tree. But uh, whether connected or not, it's
(07:08):
usually connected. Um, it's it's the same tree. Right. So um,
you said something that some of the trees in Pando
might not actually be part of Pando. There's a couple
of ways that can happen. Like you said. One, they
could be cut off physically, but even still it's still
considered part of the same group of trees, the same organism.
(07:29):
And when you're talking about a like a stand of
genetically identical aspen trees, they're called a clone, like a
pack of them or stand of them. It's called a clone,
so you can have physically cut off, genetically identical trees
that are still considered part of the same clone. But
(07:51):
being a tree, pando Um can also reproduce sexually. And
aspens are also kind of unique or peculiar in that
they can reproduce vegetatively, but they also reproduce sexually, but
they don't have the equipment for both sides of sexual
reproduction on the same tree. So a tree is either
(08:13):
male or female, and in the case of pando, Pando's
a male. But that's pretty interesting too. I think if
that we're talking about like the biggest organism on Earth,
the most massive organism on Earth, but to know that
it has a name and that it's a male just
makes it all that more endearing, you know. Yeah, And
like you said, even though they do have flowers and sexes,
(08:36):
it's they almost always reproduce vegetatively. Yeah, I think it's
starting to become clear that they actually produce sexually more
than we realize. But for a long time they're like,
that's basically it for aspen. Yeah, and it's uh, like
there are plenty of aspen grows and clones that are impressive,
(08:57):
but this is one where every thing kind of came together,
and we'll talk about all those different things, but everything
kind of came together in the right way just to
create something this massive, Right, Yeah, Panda lucked out. In
other words, yeah, they're not normally this impressive and large.
No huh um. One of the things about like a
(09:19):
clone of aspen trees like Pando is that in one
of the reasons why they can get so huge is
one that vegetative growth, of vegetative reproduction. But also when
you have, like when you're covering a hundred and six
acres of land, you've got a like a lot of
different resources available to you, and you're interconnected, you're just
(09:42):
one organism. And this whole thing makes me think, like, Chuck,
what are we really talking about when we're talking about pando.
We're talking about the collection of individual trees that we
typically see as like as individuals. Are we really talking
about like the roots system? Is that the real organism
that we're referring to? Are you asking a little bit?
(10:02):
I think it's both. It's all the same, right, Okay,
I guess it is all the same, but but you
tend to think of like an organism is like, you know,
a tree is a thing, but a whole bunch of
trees that are all connected to a root system that's
just different in some weird way that I can't quite
put my finger on. Yeah. I like to think that
they're all just holding hands underground, right, but it's all
(10:23):
just one hand. Yeah. But like you were saying, uh,
like the benefits of something like this is that they
are they do have different access to different things depending
on where they are in that forest. So like there
may be you know, three or four big old trees
down near the water that are just sucking up water
(10:44):
and sharing it with the trees near them. They can
just send that right down the old shared root pipeline
and say, I know you're thirsty over there, so why
don't you enjoy this spring water? Yeah, exactly, it's delicious
spring water. Um. They can also shuttle newt treents around
pando Can from one area to another, and so as
a result, you'll find aspens in some like really surprising places.
(11:07):
They're really hearty, and they really they show up everywhere
from like kind of wet rainforesty type areas to semi
arid um kind of brush land, Like they'll grow everywhere.
And they have a huge range too. You can find
aspen in North America from Alaska down to Mexico and
from Vancouver over to Maine. So they have a pretty good,
(11:29):
pretty good range. Uh, and they've grow just about everywhere. Yeah,
but they need a lot of sunshine. The one thing
that um, the aspen does not like a shade, and
as their kryptonite it kind of is um. Moist soil
is the best. Plenty of sunshine and uh, gravelly slopes,
(11:51):
sandy sandy ground is great. But they are pretty um,
pretty hardy as long as as long as you don't
have anything big that's creating a canopy nearby to block
out that sunshine. Yeah, because think about you've got some
shoots that grew up and they're like, oh, I'm in
a semi arid area, now i could use some water
over here, and it just sends it from the wetlands.
(12:12):
I just think that's amazing. Josh Love, Pando Chuck Love
message break. Okay, let's do it then. All right, Well,
now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
to learn a thing or two from Josh Pan Chuck.
It's stuff you should know, all right, than alright, Chuck,
(12:52):
So we could probably stop here, and I just I'd
stand by my statement about loving PANDO. I think PANDO
is just an amazing inter seing organism. But I think
like all aspen stands are now all clones of aspen
let's think they're really cool. But we haven't even begun
to scratch the surface and how interesting these things are. Yeah,
(13:13):
you want to talk about fire, I do, because this
is one of the reasons why I love earth science,
Like everything fits together, and everything has an explanation, and
if you mess with one thing over here, something else
way over here goes weird. I just love earth science
for that and this is a good example of it. Yeah,
so in our forest fires episode, which I think was
(13:34):
a great one, and go back and revisit that if
you want to learn more about this kind of thing.
But fire, as it happens, forest fires are kind of
great for aspens. Yeah, they thrive in fire pretty much
not in fire. It's a little little complicated, but it's
(13:55):
actually very simple. So um, So there's a few things
that happened like with fire. Supposedly, a wildfire when it
reaches an aspen stand will will sometimes die out because
aspens actually don't burn very well. They have really wet leaves,
and their bark says pretty moist too, and so does
their branches, So they don't burn well. Um, but they
(14:17):
are sensitive to fire, and that they've kind of seems
like kind of evolved to respond to fire, but not
necessarily in the ways you think like they can burn,
especially their canopy, their tops can burn pretty pretty badly.
But the way that they react to fire is if
fire comes through and wipes out some of their sprouts,
those little ramlets, the seedlings basically that grow up from
(14:39):
the roots system. If fire wipes some of those out,
those things send like a hormonal signal to the rest
of the tree saying we've got this area covered. We
don't need any competition, just keep the sprouts in check here.
When when those things are gone and those hormonal signals
are lost to the tree responds by shooting up many,
many times the number of sprout that were lost to
(15:00):
fire and repopulates an area that's been ravaged by fire
very very quickly and comes to dominate it for the
next hundred, two hundred, possibly thousand years. Yeah, twenty or
thirty years is all it takes. Uh, if an area
has been wiped out by wildfire to get that aspen
grove is plentiful or even more so than it was before. Uh.
(15:24):
And they do this because, uh, well, the conifer is
sort of the enemy. We like to think all trees
like each other, and they probably do emotionally, but the
conifer is what really provides that that upper canopy that
that is really bad for the aspen. So during a wildfire,
(15:45):
the aspen is fire resistant to a certain degree because,
like you said, with the wetness of the leaves and
twigs and branches. But those conifers go up like a match,
so they're killed off first. A lot of times, like
you said that, the aspens are just left and they're great.
We we got rid of those jerky conifers over there,
and now we're good. But even if it does kill
(16:06):
it all out, the aspens grow up a lot faster
than the new conifers do, so they basically sort of
beat them to the punch post wildfire, right exactly. And
not just wildfires. They show up after like mud slides
and rock slides and landslides and avalanches and everything you
can think of that could wipe out a forest. You're
(16:26):
gonna if if it's within the aspens range, you're gonna
find aspen there first. And you know, we were talking
about how one of the things about it is that quaking,
trembling sunlight that allows filter light through well. That obviously
allows saplings of um aspen to shoot up and grow.
And and as you were saying, when the conifers come in,
(16:47):
they block out that sunlight, and so the aspen seedlings
don't have any kind of chance at growing up as
the conifers start to uh interlope through the borders. I
think that right interloped through the borders of the clone,
the aspen clone, and then eventually make their way further
and further in. And then if everything's going well for
(17:08):
the aspen, and as is the case with nature, fire
comes along wipes all the conifers out and the cycle
starts again. And through this an aspen clone can live
for a very very long time as long as there's
a cycle of fire that doesn't come too frequently and
keep the aspen from growing back or come to infrequently
(17:31):
and allow the conifers to really take over and kill
off any new growth in the aspen clone. Yeah, if
it wasn't for like if America, if North America had
never had humans here and it was just allowed to
do whatever happens, Uh, there would be a lot more fire.
You know. Fire suppression is a is a human thing
because we like to put out fires for the most part.
(17:53):
And if that had never happened, the United States would
have I don't want to say it would be largely aspen,
but there would be a lot of aspen forest and
forest grows, yeah, and the ones that are around still today,
it would be in a lot better shape because I mean,
just another way to put it is aspen grows need
fire to thrive. Yeah, just as simple as that. It's
(18:17):
really really interesting. So um, one of the things that
I ran across I kept seeing was that a lot
of the and I got the impression that was like
old time or stuff. And I was right that you
can you can tell one aspen grow from another, like
a clone from another clone, because they'll grow up against
each other and sometimes intermingle. Um. Sometimes in the spring
(18:38):
you can see the leaf formation kind of come out
in certain ways, but really in the fall you can see,
you know, one aspen clone from another one will have
like a like a brilliant gold other will be like
a scarlet red or something like that. And then in
the fall you can kind of see the boundaries between
one aspen clone and another aspen clone. And for many
(18:59):
of myn of years, that's just how they did it.
And then genetics came along and they said, yeah, you're
wrong about a lot of this. Yeah. So like the
old timey researchers would say, look at those twenty five
trees all grouped together. They have the same exact bright
yellow color. Uh so that's that's all one clone. And
(19:20):
these guys over here red. But like you said, when
they actually finally got the technology to check, that was
not necessarily the case, and they'd walk away like kind
of dust in their hands off and fine, going off
to the no after before they're like, it was a
fine days work using my peepers to to tell one
clone apart from another. Peepers. I know that word. I
(19:44):
came across it again. You remember that episode. Oh yeah,
I think that's one of the worst slang terms of
all times. Peepers, one of the worst non offensive slang
terms of all time. Yeah, that's a good that's a
good call leaf peepers. Yeah, and that the whole thing
the genetic zo is. For a while there that was
causing a little bit of uh, well, I mean just confusion.
(20:06):
I guess it's not. It wasn't like the end of
the world or anything, but it was a little confusing
because at one point, like you know, thirty years ago,
they the scientists were there watching what they thought was
that single clone of aspen, and they thought, oh my god,
we've just learned something. This this this tree or this
you know, this clone has actually changed sex. It's amazing.
(20:30):
It's producing pollen this year and last year it produced flowers,
and oh my god, what a breakthrough. And then now
that we have genetic testing, they're like, oh no, that's
actually two different clones. Yeah, when they started looking at
at um some of those trees more closely, like, yeah,
they look alike, but actually this is they're not genetically identical.
They're not part of the same Aspen clone, but they
(20:54):
could still be a direct descendant from that Aspen clone,
because remember and aspens reproduced. They can do it one
of two ways, vegetatively, which produces trees that are genetically
identical to other trees that have sprouted up from the
same root system, or they can do it sexually um,
and the seeds that come out are um are not
(21:16):
genetically identical, So you can have offspring and genetic genetically
identical clones of the same tree all intermingled in the
same little area. It's pretty fascinating, it is. Uh. And
as far as age of these things, it kind of
depends um on where you are. Like, usually an aspen
(21:37):
tree won't live more than a hundred and fifty years,
occasionally up to two hundred in in Colorado, where Panda is.
I just love saying his name. I know, it's so cute.
It's close to Panda, that's why. That's definitely why. But oh,
it's nice of fat on the end, so it looks
like it's got some chubby cheeks you just want to pinch.
(21:58):
Probably does. As far as as Panda goes in Colorado,
they usually don't get to be more than about seventy
five years old. And it's not like you can go
to a clone either and pluck out what you think
is the oldest tree and say this is how old
the clone is, because it may be oh yeah, it
may be the newest tree. That's why I'm like, Okay,
so is the organism really the root system if a tree,
(22:21):
if a tree just like dies. I think around the
area where Pando grows in Utah, uh, I think on
the Colorado Front Range is what it's called. They said
Colorado Emit Colorado Front Range, Colorado Front Range, so um,
in that area they usually live that well we call trees,
but what are really just stems growing up from Pando's
(22:42):
root system. Those things live for about seventy five years.
The oldest aspens live for about two hundred years. Pando
is way way older than that, even by the most
conservative estimates. Yeah, I mean they say thirteen thousand years
old to eighty thousand years old. Yeah, and I think
(23:03):
thirteen thousand is really hedging bets because they're like, well,
that's about when the last ice age ended, so Pando
probably couldn't have lived through that. But I was looking
at ice sheet maps. There was not an ice sheet
anywhere near where Panda's going. So it's it's entirely possible
with a hardy and resilient as um aspen stands are
(23:25):
that Pando is as far far older than that. You
mean the ice sheet map on your bedroom wall. He
just got out of bed, went let me look at
this again. Well, you haven't been over for a while.
I haven't pasted to the ceiling, so I don't even
oh man, just lay there in point. I'm like, you're
really getting efficiencies the laurentide kind of day. That's great. Yeah,
(23:47):
uh yeah. So I mean and this one article sent
over the said in principle, clones may even be essentially immortal.
That's you know. But yeah, they've they hedged it within principle,
like and it can die from disease like aspen or
they're not like indestructible. There's all sorts of things that
can hurt them. Because of their really soft bark, they're
(24:08):
susceptible to boring insects and diseases that can come from
that um. A lot of birds that bore live in
in aspen um, which I think is not bad for him.
I'm not sure, but there so they can die. There's
a lot of things that can kill an aspen growth.
But if if everything was going right, where there's no
(24:29):
reason that it should die, there's no like a human,
we can do everything right and we're still going to
die someday. There's like a certain there's a certain number
of times our cells are going to divide, and they're
gonna stop, and we're eventually going to run out of
dividing cells and then we die. Right, that's not necessarily
the case with an Aspen clone. That's why they're saying,
like in principle they are technically immortal, or they may
(24:51):
be technically immortal, and they think that possibly Pando is
more than eighty thousand years old. That's the high end.
Although there's a and uh at the University of Michigan,
who's who's saying something like a million. I'm not back
in that one. I love that. I'll go as high
as eighty thousand and uh. Dr Barnes, we don't mean
(25:12):
to call you a kook. We're just joking. We were joking.
All right. Well, let's uh take a break, hire an attorney,
and we're going to talk about why why pandos now
in trouble, which is very very sad. Right after this, well,
now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
to learn a thing or two from Josh Pam Chuck.
(25:35):
It's stuff you should know, all right, all right, Chuck,
(25:57):
Like you said, I spoiled it for everybody already. But
Pando is dying. Yeah, Um, that's not an overstatement. Yeah,
it's very sad. Here's what's going on, and here's what
can go on really to any I mean Pando special,
but any any clone like Thisando is very special. It's uh.
There are a few things that can happen. We already
(26:17):
talked a little bit about, like you know, birds and
and blight and stuff like that. There's also disease. Uh,
but human interaction has had a major toll on these forests.
In the eighties and nineties, there were, of course, people
were able to build homes within where Pando is, in
(26:38):
this hundred and six acres. Uh. People also want to
go see these things that like, all right, well let's
let's put a campground there as well. And if you
want to campground, you want toilets, and you want plumbing,
and you want picnic tables and roads, roads and parking
lots and stuff like that and water lines and all
of this stuff. Even though they do as good a
(26:59):
job as they can at pres ovation, um, it all
takes its toll little by little with every new you know,
parking lot laid down on something like Pando. So um,
all of these things being built in the middle of Pando, right,
in the middle of Pando Um. They have had their effect.
But it's probable that Panda is kind of like, let's
(27:21):
just grow around you. It's fine. I'm not happy about it, human,
but I know you don't know any better. I'm Pando.
I'll just grow around. So that's fine. That's not what
it is. That was. That's so that's strike one. But
humans are not off the hook because it turns out
that we're doing things in other ways and that whole
like Earth science, messing with something over here has having
(27:43):
these effects over here. That's going on with Pando right
now as well. Yeah, because one of the major threats,
aside from wildfires that we're putting out is uh. Herbivores,
deer and elk specifically love to eat the those tiny
little baby aspen that's sprout up from the ground from well,
(28:05):
I was about to say, from Pando. Uh. They eat
them so fast it never almost has a chance to
become part of Fando, right, like Pando doesn't. They are
doing studies now. Panda is old. They're old trees. It's
a bunch of senior citizens hanging out holding hands. There's
not a youngster among them, right, And that's not good,
(28:25):
whether it's a human civilization or population or a population
of uh, you know, aspen clones. You want like all
stages of life. You want mature trees, middle aged trees,
young trees, saplings, you want all that. And if you
have nothing but old trees, those old trees, remember they
only live about seventy five years, so as they start
(28:47):
to die, that means Pando is dying. As as long
as an aspen clone is replacing itself, it's fine, it's healthy.
But if it's not, then it's in big, big trouble.
And apparently Pando is in big, big trouble and has
been for some years now because of overgrazing and over browsing,
not just with like cattle, like grazing cattle, which apparently
(29:09):
happens on Pando land, but also UM the mule, deer
and elk populations are supposedly booming in Utah in the
area where Pando lives. Yeah, and they're they're you know,
they're able to prove this now, uh. In a couple
of ways, UM in the US Forestry Service clear cut
fifteen full acres of Pando right in the middle of
(29:32):
it and fenced off about a third of this left
the other two thirds, uh, just to you know, do
do what it would do. And the fenced part came
back really healthy, which was a very clear indicator that
because uh, there wasn't anything there to eat these little
seedlings that pop up that that's the big diff Um.
(29:54):
So that was uh. In two thousand thirteen, they fenced
off and area from Uh. I love the word ungulates.
It's any kind of hoofed animal, whether natural or just
you know, someone's cattle, because like you said, how many
how many weeks a year do they allow cattle? A
couple of weeks? Two weeks? But I think like each
rancher gets two weeks there. I don't think it's like, hey,
(30:18):
everybody bring your cattle to Panda land for like a
two week period, although I could be wrong. Pando pandas
like please please don't not again. Yeah. So in two
thousand thirteen, they they fenced off this area and are
gonna leave it that way. And this is all part
of a study. UM. A nonprofit group of conservationists got
(30:39):
together with the US Force Service to kind of check
out what happens. And then this year that's why it's
what's current, Like you said, at the beginning, these these
results are coming in and it's pretty obvious what's going on.
It is. So number one, it's the it's the over browsing,
especially among elkin mule deer UM. But also number two, uh,
(31:02):
it's the um the fact that the fences aren't necessarily
working as well. So like, the fences are doing the
best that they can and the unfenced area is in
even bigger trouble. But even the fences they're using, the
mule deer are able to hop over and eat these
shoots um. And so you think, okay, well that's the
(31:23):
mule deer's fault. Let's just kill a bunch of mule deer. Well,
the problem is and this is so we've i should say,
we've reached like a point of contention here because the
guys um led by the researchers, led by a guy
at the university or Utah State University, Paul Rodgers. He
is a an ecologist, and he's clearly he's among a
(31:44):
group who are saying the Utah fish and wildlife are
are they are overpopulating the area with elk and mule
deer because they make money from hunting licenses and as
like the more l can mule deer there are, the
more hunting of those things that can go on, the
more the state UM Wildlife Commission can take in hunting licenses, right,
(32:09):
hunting license fees, Yeah, revenue, And so the state is like, no,
that's not it. Actually elk and a mule deer are
lower than ever. Whether that's the case or not, whether
they're being managed in correctly or not, it does seem
pretty clearly that at the very least overbrowsing by mule
deer and elk is a major major factor, if not
the dominant factor in what's killing panda off. Yeah, and
(32:33):
this goes back even further because, like you were saying,
touch one thing here and it affects something over there.
This can even be separated by like a hundred years.
Go back to the early nineteen hundreds, when people in
this country, uh, in North America as a whole hunted wolves,
hunted mountain lines and mountain lions, hunted grizzly bears. Uh
(32:53):
what is what are they? They are animals that eat
mule deer and elk. So it's it's called an effect
here a hundred plus years later, where there aren't a
lot of apex predators out there keeping these helping to
keep these deer population in check. So there's been talk
here and there. I don't I mean, they're not gonna
do it now that they said unequivocally. They're not like,
(33:15):
should we reintroduce wolves to the ecosystem because that's a
very national natural predator prey cycle that goes on that
is not happening right now. No. And I mean it's
like hunters coal uh, that is to say, shoot mule
deer and elkins stuff like that. So the population, it's
(33:35):
not like it's getting out of hand. And if it
ever did, they would just have like open season on
these things, right, And if it ever did, they would
just sell more hunting licenses. I don't think that that's
the issue. What the what Paul Rodgers and some of
his fellow A collegists are saying is that if the
presence of like wolves and bears and mountain lions is
known in an area, the elkin, the mule deer, they're
(33:59):
not just gonna stay in one place for very long.
They're going to constantly be on the move. And so
even if they are going through with a big population
eating a bunch of shoots off of something like Pando.
They're not going to be doing it in the same place,
so the panda will be able to recover over time
because that browsing will be distributed. Whereas now it's like,
(34:20):
I don't feel like going ten miles down the mountain.
I'm gonna stay right here and just keep eating Pando
until Pando dies. Yeah, there's no wolves, right, there's no bears,
or least not enough to to scare me and my
my gang here. Yeah. Yeah, they call it an ecology
of fear. I've never heard of that, haven't either, And yeah,
it's it's really interesting though that they and and I
(34:43):
guess it takes you know, a hundred plus years too
to create this kind of uh almost called it a culture.
It kind of is sort of there's a culture among
these herds of hooved animals to where they're just like
you said, They're like, no, you know, there's nothing around
here to hunt me, So I'm just gonna look at
all this tasty aspen babies. I'm gonna eat them all. Yeah,
(35:04):
what am I chump? I'm not going anywhere. Yeah, it's
really interesting, it is. And then there's I and like
it's not like I'm a wildlife ecologist or a biologist
or have any formal training in it whatsoever. But I
tend to think that it's not just over browsing. I
think that they the fact that there are people that
live in Pando means that the Forest Service says, well,
(35:28):
we we have to control wildfire. You don't let wildfire
go any longer. Um, And so then you've got conifer
um forest coming in moving in on Pando too. I
think that that's probably part of the issue as well.
So the key is, Chuck, is to put up better
fences and let the fires go. Yeah, burn, baby, burn burn,
(35:49):
Just don't burn the fences down. Yeah. I don't know
what they were doing with those little three foot fences anyway, No,
because a mule deer just hops right over, just so easy. Yeah,
it's all very sad. Mean, panda is such an amazing
I don't know, such an amazing thing in this in
this country. And it's going bye bye. It is it is,
it's it is said, um yeah, and I mean part
(36:12):
of it is like, well, yes it's I mean, it's
an aspen stand. But it's possibly the oldest and definitely
the most massive organism on Earth, which seems like it
should get like a little extra attention just for that,
you know. But then you ask like, well, is that
just dumbly sentimental? Why not save everything? Why? Why why
just focus all of your attention on this one thing?
(36:33):
And then the other part of me says, well, if
you focus attention on this one thing, you come to
realize that all this other stuff is in danger as well,
and you start to care. So maybe pandas like just
the poster child for getting people into ecology a little more,
kind of like the Great Barrier Reef, you know, Superstar
of the Ocean that is uh kind of quickly going away. Yeah,
(36:57):
it's all sad. I'm depressed now. Yeah, I mean too.
I was kind of hoping to end this on a
high note. Well, you know, despite what happens to Pando,
it's not like this is the death of the the
aspen in North America. This is Pando. Yeah, there are
plenty of them in uh. And I encourage you to
go sit among the trees when the breeze is blowing
(37:19):
in the fall and tell us your experience. It's it's amazing.
It's a light and sound show. Nice. Um, I got
a couple more things. Do you want to talk about
some of the other biggest or oldest stuff on Earth? Sure?
So I mentioned that giant mushroom in Oregon. Isn't that
how they say Oregon? Oregon? Oregon? Um? It is an
(37:44):
Armillaria Ostoyer specimen and it covers acres. PANDO covers a
hundred and six This covers acres of Mallard National Forests
in Oregon, UM. But they only think that it's just
a couple of thousand years old, and that's just that's
just area that's not mass. Yeah. I think I learned
(38:08):
about PANDO a few years ago when I was trying
to find out the oldest tree. There's like a sequoia
that's pretty old, right or is it the biggest? You know.
I can't remember where I ended up as far as
that result goes, but I know that's where I found
out about PANDO. And I was like, what And there
are some old trees. There's like some bristle comb pines
(38:30):
in California that are about five thousand years old. That's
pretty old for a tree. There's a creas salt bush
that's at least eleven thousand, seven hundred years old. And
then have you heard of um glass sponges. There are
glass sponges. They live in the water off of Antarctica.
(38:51):
They lived to about fifteen thousand years old. A sponge.
Who'd have thought, you know, amazing? You got anything else?
I got nothing now? Okay, well then, uh, we'll just
put out a call for everybody to save Pando. Okay, yes,
send us. Uh if you've actually been to Pando or
in in Pando on Pando on Pando, Yeah, in Pando
(39:16):
that's gross. Uh, send us. I want to I want
to hear about this experience. Okay, yes, please to Uh.
And in the meantime, how about a listener mail. Yeah,
I'm gonna call this. UM, we got a couple on
robin Hood. I'll read these these couple in the next
(39:37):
two episodes. Hey guys, Uh, every episode you release, it's
done to such a high standard. It's clear that the
true effort and love of the job is poured into
every session in the studio. You might get a little
too much credit. Joey Uh. The episode on robin Hood
especially piqued my interest, though as I am from Nottingham
sure myself and I live only about ten miles a
(40:00):
from rain Worth. The area of Sherwood Forest where Robin
Hood and his men are fabled to have resided or
at least spent a lot of their time in this
area is the major oak of Sherwood Forest, which is
said to be the location they chose for shelter. It
is between eight hundred to a thousand years old and
is now held up by a series of poles due
(40:21):
to his age and bad health. Interesting. Maybe they should
do that with Bando. I think I saw that tree.
Actually I saw something on it. Oh yeah, when doing
panda research would have been like, gosh, this trees everywhere. Uh.
The episode was so well done. You taught me new information.
Even though I've been to the woods and Visitor Center
(40:42):
a few times, I have taken my children as well,
and they also love the legend myth of Robin Hood.
My father in law happens to be called Robin and
resides in the Sherwood district, so I sometimes dropped little
hints to my young children that he could possibly be
the Robin of Sherwood. I lost all credibility with them.
(41:04):
They love it, even though I think they're onto the ruse.
Really really looking forward to your legendary Halloween episode. I'm
a huge fan of horror and I am actually in
a horror punk rock band called Headstone Horrors based in Nottingham, UK.
So this is an amazing busy and exciting time of
the year for us. I bet they book a lot
(41:25):
of gigs in October. Don't you think I would guess
so Headstone Horrors, I would guess January is not a
huge month for him. No, no or Christmas or Christmas season.
Everybody Headstone Horrors Christmas album. Uh, It's an amazing busy
and exciting time of year for us. I would love
to send you a C D T T shirts if
(41:46):
you like. Just let me know your size as you want,
and I'll pack them up and send them on their way.
That is from Joey Gathercole of shere would, son of
Robin perhaps father of incredible this Children. Well thanks a lot, buddy,
that was fantastic. I appreciate the offer for the shirt.
(42:07):
I think we will be taking you up on that. Uh.
And in the meantime, if you out there want to
get in touch with us to let us know you're interesting.
Amazing story of how you fib to your children, We'd
love to hear that you can go to stuff you
Should Know dot com and find all of our social links.
I'm also at the Josh clark Way dot com and
(42:27):
you can send me, Chuck and Jerry All an email
to Stuff podcast how stuff Works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
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