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Pando, a grove of about 47,000 aspen trunks in Utah, is a single organism: every trunk grows from one shared root system and carries the same genes.

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The story behind the card

Pando, Latin for 'I spread', is a clone of quaking aspen covering about 43 hectares of Fishlake National Forest in Utah. Aspens can reproduce by sending up new shoots from their roots, so what looks like a forest is one plant with many stems. Foresters Jerry Kemperman and Burton Barnes identified it as a single organism in 1976, and the ecologist Michael Grant later gave it its name. Weighing an estimated 6,000 tonnes, it is among the heaviest living things known. Its age is uncertain: charcoal studies from 2022 point to at least 9,000 years, and a 2024 genetic study suggested 16,000 years or more. Today Pando is thinning, because deer, elk and cattle eat its young shoots.

Türkçe oku
Utah'taki Pando korusu yaklaşık 47.000 titrek kavak gövdesinden oluşur, ama tek bir canlıdır: bütün gövdeler aynı kök sisteminden büyür ve aynı genleri taşır.

Latincede “yayılıyorum” anlamına gelen Pando, Utah'taki Fishlake Ulusal Ormanı'nda yaklaşık 43 hektarlık bir alanı kaplayan bir titrek kavak klonudur. Titrek kavaklar köklerinden yeni sürgünler vererek çoğalabilir; bu yüzden orman gibi görünen şey, aslında çok gövdeli tek bir bitkidir. Ormancılar Jerry Kemperman ve Burton Barnes, 1976'da bunun tek bir canlı olduğunu belirledi; Pando adını ise daha sonra ekolog Michael Grant verdi. Tahminen 6.000 ton ağırlığıyla bilinen en ağır canlılardan biridir. Yaşı kesin değil: topraktaki kömürleşmiş kalıntılar üzerine 2022'de yapılan çalışmalar en az 9.000 yıla işaret ediyor, 2024'teki bir genetik çalışma ise 16.000 yıl ya da daha fazlasını öneriyor. Pando bugün seyreliyor, çünkü geyikler ve sığırlar genç sürgünlerini yiyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Pando (tree)
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