Stuff You Should Know - Pando: Earth’s Oldest, Hugest Organism Is Trees!

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. On the podcast, Hey Dude the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from house.works.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant 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. 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 just previously knew about Pando. Oh really? That's kind of awesome, because I knew about the giant mushroom out in Oregon, but I didn't know about Pando, and now I do, and we'll get to it, but Pando's not doing so hot right now. Spoiler. Yeah, that is a spoiler, isn't it? It's a sad giant forest. It is.

A genetically identical forest. So let's spell it out for everybody what Pando is. You want to? Yeah. It's an aspen forest, aspen trees. Which by the way, far and away the best looking trees at least. It's certainly one of them, depending on what you're out for as your tree fetish. Well I tend to like the white papery bark with black eyes. That's usually the kind of tree I like, so aspen's it for me. Yeah, so I mean aspen's in general, before we get to what Pando is, they're medium-sized,

they're deciduous, they're generally between 20 and 80 feet high, about 3 to 18 inches in diameter, and like you said, they have that bark that's that sort of smooth greenish white, yellowish white, gray or white. So pretty. And they have a little green in the bark from chlorophyll, which is kind of interesting for a tree. Yeah, from what I saw unique among North American trees that aspen bark actually is living. It's like tissue that actually produces chlorophyll and carries out some photosynthesis for the

tree. Yeah. And most other trees don't do that, but that explains why the bark's so unique too. Yeah, so the aspen is known for a lot of things, but one of the things where their leaves produce they're really thin and firm, almost round, about an inch and a half to three inches in diameter with a little pointy apex. They look kind of like a spade in a suit of cards, like a deck of cards. Yeah, sort of like that for sure, call a spade a spade, unless it's an aspen leaf.

But 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, that was a really great description. So the leaf kind of moves around on the stem in ways that leaves typically don't. It 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 it and be like, look at how sparse that tree is, but compared to some other trees, say like a maple 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 specifically Pando is a quaking aspen. The sound that it creates 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. No. It's a pretty good aspen, quaking aspen impression. It sounds like a duck. A lot of people confuse it for ducks, so it's actually a pretty good aspen. But that's the aspen in general, but go ahead and drop it, drop it on everyone's head what Pando is, because it's pretty remarkable.

Oh, you're letting me do it? Yeah. All right. So Pando is an aspen forest, an enormous aspen forest, 106 acre aspen forest. And you'd say, well, I could name the woods in my backyard Todd or Jimmy, who cares. Somebody gave a name to a forest, but no, there's something very special about Pando. Pando is not just a forest, Pando is a forest of trees that are all genetically identical because they all come from one massive root structure that forms by mass, the largest

organism on earth. Yeah. Yeah, that's Pando. 13 million pounds, 6,500 tons. And while we would love to say every single one of these, maybe up to 50,000 trees is connected literally, some of them might not be, but we did learn through this research that you can be cut off if something happens to cut you off from the roots of your neighbor. You can still be considered part of that because you're still genetically identical.

Right. Yes. So quaking aspen's 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 called vegetative reproduction. And it's pretty straightforward stuff. If you've ever seen like say an 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 a certain point, 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 out of the original plant's arm. It's all the same plant. It's one big organism. 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 like horizontal fence of tree branches all along the ground.

It's actually roots underground. Sometimes it can go like a hundred feet and say, I think I'd like to grow up now. Yeah. Feels like a good spot. Why don't you grow up in this little sprout called a rammet, says, I will watch. And pando goes, whoa. With the light. Yes.

And it looks like its own tree, but whether connected or not, and it's usually connected. It's the same tree. Right. So 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. And when you're talking about a stand of genetically identical aspen trees, they're

called a clone, like a pack of them or a 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 being a tree, pando 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 male or female, and in the case of pando, pando's a male. Yeah.

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, 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 like there are plenty of aspen grows and clones that are impressive, but this is one where everything 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. Pando lucked out in other words.

Yeah. They're not normally this impressive and large. No. Uh-huh. One of the things about like a clone of aspen trees like pando is that, and one of the reasons why they can get so huge is one that vegetative growth, vegetative reproduction, but also when you have like, when you're covering 106 acres of land, you've got like a lot of different resources available to you and you're interconnected, you're just one organism and this whole thing

makes me think like, Chuck, what are we really talking about when we're talking about pando? Are we talking about the collection of individual trees that we typically see as like, as individuals? Or are we really talking about like the root system? Is that the real organism that we're referring to? Are you asking? A little bit. I think it's both. It's all the same, right?

Okay. I guess it is all the same. Yeah. But you tend to think of like an organism as 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 just one hand. Yeah. But like you were saying, 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 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. They can also shuttle nutrients around Pando Can from one area to another. And so as a result, you'll find aspens in some like really surprising places. They're really hardy and they really, they show up everywhere from like kind of wet rainforesty type areas to semi arid 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, pretty good range and they grow just about everywhere. Yeah. But they need a lot of sunshine. The one thing that the aspen does not like a shade and it's their kryptonite. It kind of is.

Moist soil is the best, plenty of sunshine and gravelly slopes, sandy. Sandy ground is great, but they are pretty hardy as long as you don't have anything big that's creating a canopy nearby to block out that sunshine. Yeah. Because think about it. 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. Yeah.

I just think that's amazing. It is. Josh love pando. Chuck love message break. Okay. Let's do it then. All right. Now when you're on the road, driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh

and Chuck. It's stuff you should know. All right. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lacher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it.

And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co stars, friends and non stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

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The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. You ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh God.

Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy.

You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Chuck, 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, interesting organism. But I think like all Aspen stands are now all clones of Aspen. I just think they're really cool, but we haven't even begun to scratch the surface and how interesting these things are. Yeah. 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. Forest fires episode, which I think was a great one, 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 complicated, but it's actually very simple. So there's a few things that happen like with fire. Supposedly, a wildfire, when it reaches an Aspen stand, will sometimes die out. Because Aspens actually don't burn very well. They have really wet leaves and their bark stays pretty moist too, and so does their

branches. So they don't burn well, but they are sensitive to fire in that they kind of, seems like kind of evolved to respond to fire, but not necessarily in the ways you think. They can burn, especially their canopy, their tops can burn pretty badly. But the way that they react to fire is if fire comes through and wipes out some of their sprouts, those little ramets, the seedlings basically that grow up from the root 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 those things are gone and those hormonal signals are lost too, the tree responds by shooting up many, many times the number of sprouts that were lost to fire and repopulates an area that's been ravaged by fire very, very quickly and comes to dominate it for the next 100, 200, possibly 1000 years. Yeah, 20 or 30 years is all it takes if an area has been wiped out by wildfire to get that aspen grove as plentiful or even more so than it was before.

And they do this because, 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 upper canopy that is really bad for the aspen. So during a wildfire, 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, the aspen are just left and they're like, great.

We got rid of those jerky conifers over there and now we're good. But even if it does kill it all out, the aspen 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 mudslides and rockslides and landslides and avalanches and everything you can think of that could wipe out a forest. If it's within the aspen's range, you're going to find aspen there first. And we were talking about how one of the things about it is that quaking, trembling sunlight

that allows filter light through. So that obviously allows saplings of aspen to shoot up and grow. And as you were saying, when the conifers come in, 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 interlope through the borders, I think that's right, interlope 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 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 too infrequently 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, North America had never had humans here, and it was just allowed to do whatever happens, there would be a lot more fire. Fire suppression is a human thing because we like to put out fires for the most part.

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 forests and forest groves. Yeah. And the ones that are around still today, it would be in a lot better shape. For sure. Because I mean, just another way to put it is aspen groves need fire to thrive. Yeah. Just as simple as that.

It's really, really interesting. So one of the things that I ran across, I kept seeing was that a lot of the, and I got the impression that it was like old-timer stuff, and I was right, that 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. Sometimes in the spring, you can see the leaf formation kind of come out in certain ways. But really in the fall, you can see one aspen clone from another. One will have like a brilliant gold, other will be like a scarlet red or something like

that. So you can kind of see the boundaries between one aspen clone and another aspen clone. And for many, many 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 25 trees all grouped together. They have the same exact bright yellow color. So that's all one clone.

And these guys over here are 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 dusting their hands off and going off to the... No, after, before, they were like, it was a fine day's work using my peepers to tell one clone apart from another. Least peepers. I know that word. I came across it again.

You remember that episode? Oh, yeah. I think that's one of the worst slang terms of all time. Least peepers. Mm-hmm. One of the worst non-offensive slang terms of all time. Yeah. That's a good call.

Least peepers. Yeah. And the whole thing with the genetics though is for a while there, that was causing a little bit of, well, I mean, just confusion, I guess. It wasn't like the end of the world or anything, but it was a little confusing because at one point, like 20, 30 years ago, the scientists were watching what they thought was that single clone of Aspen and they thought, oh my God, we've just learned something. This tree or this clone has actually changed sex.

It's amazing. 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. And when they started looking at some of those trees more closely, they're 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 could still be a direct descendant

from that Aspen clone. Because remember, when Aspen's 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. And the seeds that come out are not genetically identical. So you can have offspring and genetically identical clones of the same tree all intermingled in the same little area. It's pretty fascinating.

It is. And as far as age of these things, it kind of depends on where you are. Like, usually an Aspen tree won't live more than 150 years, occasionally up to 200. In Colorado where Pando is, I just love saying his name. I know. That's so cute. It's close to Pando. That's why.

That's definitely why. Oh, it's nice and fat on the end, so it looks like it's got some chubby cheeks. You just want to pinch. Probably does. As far as Pando goes in Colorado, they usually don't get to be more than about 75 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 the newest tree. That's why I'm like, okay, so is the organism really the root system?

If a tree just dies, I think around the area where Pando grows in Utah, I think on the Colorado front range is what it's called. Yeah, I think I said Colorado, I meant Colorado front range. Colorado front range? Yeah. And in that area, they usually live, well, we call trees, but what are really just stems growing up from Pando's root system, those things live for about 75 years. The oldest aspens live for about 200 years.

Pando is way, way older than that, even by the most conservative estimates. Yeah. I mean, they say 13,000 years old to 80,000 years old. Yeah. 13,000 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 Pando's going, so it's entirely possible

with as hardy and resilient as Aspen stands are, that Pando is far, far older than that. You mean the ice sheet map on your bedroom wall? Yeah. So Pando just got out of bed and went, oh, let me look at this again. Well, you haven't been over for a while. I have it pasted to the ceiling though, so I don't even have to get out of bed. Oh, man. Just lay there and point.

I'm like... You're really getting efficiencies here. It's a Laurentide kind of day. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, and this one article you sent over that said, in principle, clones may even be essentially immortal, and that's, you know.

But yeah, they hedged it within principle. Sure. So, they can die from disease, like Aspen, they're not like indestructible. There's all sorts of things that can hurt them because of their really soft bark. They're susceptible to boring insects and diseases that can come from that. A lot of birds that bore live in Aspen, which I think is not bad for them, I'm not sure. But they're... So, they can die.

There's a lot of things that can kill an Aspen grove, but if everything was going 100% right for it, there's no 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 number of times our cells are going to divide, and they're going to stop, and we're eventually going to run out of dividing cells, and then we die, right? Yeah. 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

be technically immortal, and they think that possibly Pando is more than 80,000 years old. That's the high end, although there's a kook at the University of Michigan who's saying something like a million. I'm not backing that one. I love that. I'll go as high as 80,000. And Dr. Barnes, we don't mean to call you a kook, we're just joking. We were joking.

All right. Well, let's take a break, hire an attorney, and we're going to talk about why Pando's now in trouble, which is very, very sad, right after this. Well, now, when you're on the road, driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck, it's stuff you should know, all right. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and

dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal?

No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. You ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This I promise you.

Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step

by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Life in relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Chuck, 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's special,

but any, any clone like this, Pando is very special. It's, uh, there are a few things that, that can happen. We already 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, uh, a major toll, uh, on these forests in the 80s and 90s. There were, of course, people were able to build homes, uh, within where Pando is in this 106 acres, uh, people also want to go see these things.

They're like, all right, well, let's, let's put a campground there as well. And if you want a 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, uh, even though they do as good a job as they can at preservation, 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 effects, but it's probable that Pando

is kind of like, I'll just grow around you. 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 these effects over here, that's going on with Pando right now as well. Yeah. Cause one of the major threats, uh, aside from wildfires that we're putting out is, uh, herbivores, deer and elk specifically love to eat those tiny little baby aspen that's sprout up from the ground from, well, I was about to say from Pando, uh, they eat them

so fast it never almost has a chance to become part of Pando. Right. Yeah. Like Pando doesn't, they, they are doing studies now, Pando is old. They're old trees. It's a bunch of senior citizens hanging out, holding hands. There is not a youngster among them. Right.

And that's not good. 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 of that. And if you have nothing but old trees, those old trees, remember they only live about 75 years. So as they start to die, that means Pando's 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 happens on Pando land, but also, um, the mule deer and elk populations are supposedly booming in Utah and the area where Pando lives. Yeah.

And they're, you know, they're able to prove this now, uh, in a couple of ways. Um, in 1992, the US Forestry Service, uh, clear cut 15 full acres of Pando right in the middle of 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, the fenced part came back really healthy, uh, which is a very clear indicator that because, uh, there wasn't anything there to eat, these little seedlings that pop up, but that's the big diff. Um, so that was 1992, uh, in 2013, they fenced off an area from, uh, I love the word ungulates.

It's any kind of hoofed animal, uh, whether natural or just, you know, someone's cattle. Cause like you said, how many, how many weeks a year do they allow cattle? A couple of weeks? Two weeks, two weeks. But I think like each rancher gets two weeks there. Right. I don't think it's like a, hey, everybody bring your cattle to Pando land for like a two week period, although I could be wrong, Pando land, Pando's like, please, please don't

not again. Yeah. So in 2013, they, they fenced off this area and are going to leave it that way. And this is all part of a study, um, a nonprofit, uh, group of conservationists got together, uh, with the U S forest service to kind of check out what happens. And then this year, uh, that's why it's, what's current, like you said, 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 elk and mule deer. Um, but also number two, uh, 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 areas 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 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 Rogers. He is a, uh, an ecologist and he's clearly, he's among a 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 elk and 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?

Hunting license fees. Yeah. Revenue. And so the state is like, no, that's not actually elk and mule deer are lower than ever. Whether that's the case or not, whether they're being managed incorrectly or not, it does seem pretty clearly that at the very least over browsing by mule deer and elk is a major, major factor. If not the, the dominant factor in what's killing Pando off.

Yeah. And 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 1900s when people in this country, uh, in North America as a whole, hunted wolves, hunted mountain lions, hunted grizzly bears, uh, what is, what are they? They are animals that eat mule deer and elk. So it's, it's caused 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 going to do it. No, they said unequivocally they're not like, should we reintroduce wolves to the ecosystem? Because that's a very natural, uh, natural predator prey cycle that goes on, that is not happening right now. No. And it's like Hunter's Coal, uh, that is to say shoot mule deer and elk and stuff like

that. So the population, it's 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 Rogers and some of his fellow ecologists are saying is that if the presence of like wolves and bears and mountain lions is known in an area, the, the elk and the mule deer, they're not just going to 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 Pando will be able to recover over time because that browsing will be distributed. Because now it's like, I don't feel like going 10 miles down the mountain. I'm going to stay right here and just keep eating Pando until Pando dies. Yeah. There's no wolves.

Right. There's no bears or at least not enough to, to scare me and my, my gang here. Yeah. Yeah. They call it an ecology of fear. I'd never heard of that. I haven't either. And it's, yeah, it's, it's really interesting though that they, and I guess it takes, you

know, a hundred plus years to, to create this kind of, uh, almost called it a culture. It kind of is. Sort of is though. A culture among these herds of hoofed 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 going to look at all this tasty aspen, uh, babies. I'm going to eat them all. Yeah.

What am I a chump? I'm not going anywhere. Yeah. It's really interesting. It is. I think 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 the, um, the fact that there are people in that live in Pando means that

the forest service says, well, we, we have to control wildfire. You don't let wildfire go any longer. Yeah. Um, and so then you've got conifer, um, forests coming in, moving in on Pando too. I think 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. 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.

I mean, Pando such an amazing, uh, I don't know, such an amazing thing in this, in this country and it's going bye-bye. It is. It is. It is sad. Um, yeah. And I mean part 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? 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 Pando is like just the poster child for getting people into ecology a little more. Kind of like the Great Barrier Reef.

Yeah. You know, superstar of the ocean that is, uh, kind of quickly going away. Yeah. It's all sad. I'm depressed now. Yeah, me too. I was kind of hoping to end this on a high note. Uh, well, you know, despite what happens to Pando, it's not like this is the, the death

of the, the Aspen in North America. This is Pando. Yeah. There are plenty of them. And, uh, and I encourage you to go sit among the trees when the breeze is blowing in the fall and tell us your experience. It's, it's amazing. Yeah.

It's a light and sound show. Nice. Um, I got a couple more things. 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 a, an armillaria ostoye specimen and it covers 2,200 acres. Pando covers 106. This covers 2,200 acres of Mallor, uh, 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 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, uh, as far as that result goes. But I know that's where I found out about Pando. Gotcha. And I was like, what?

And there are some old trees. There's like some bristle comb pines in California that are about 5,000 years old. Yeah. That's pretty old for a tree. There's a creosote bush that's at least 11,700 years old. That's crazy. And then have you heard of, um, glass sponges? No.

There are glass sponges. They live, uh, in the water off of Antarctica. They live to about 15,000 years old. A sponge. Who'd have thought, you know? You got anything else? I got nothing else. Okay.

Well, then, uh, we'll just put out a call for everybody to save Pando. Okay. Yeah. Send us, uh, if you've actually been to, uh, Pando or in Pando on Pando, on Pando. Yeah. In Pando. That's gross. Uh, send us, I want to, I want to hear about this experience.

Okay. Yes. Please do. And in the meantime, how about a listener mail? Yeah, I'm going to call this, um, uh, we got a couple on Robin Hood. I'll read these, these couple in the next two episodes. Okay. 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 this little too much credit, Joey. The episode on Robin Hood, especially piqued my interest though, is I am from Nottingham shire, myself, and I live only about 10 miles away from Rainworth, uh, 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. Nice.

Uh, in this area, uh, is the major oak of Sherwood Forest, which is said to be the location they chose for shelter. It is between 800 to 1,000 years old and is now held up by a series of poles due to us age and bad health. Interesting. Maybe they should do that with Pando. I think I saw that tree actually. I saw something on it.

Oh yeah? Mm-hmm. When doing Pando research? No, when doing Robin Hood research. Gotcha. Would have been like, gosh, this tree is everywhere. Uh, the episode was so well done, you taught me new information, even though I've been to the woods and visitor center a few times.

Oh, that's high praise. Uh, I've 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 drop little hints to my young children that he could possibly be the Robin of Sherwood. I've lost all credibility with them. They love it, even though I think they're on to the ruse. Uh, 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 booked a lot of gigs in October, don't you think? I would guess so. Headstone Horrors? I would guess January's not a huge month for them, though. No, or Christmas season. Right.

Everybody. A Headstone Horrors Christmas album. Uh, it's an amazing, busy, and exciting time of year for us. I would love to send you a CD, some t-shirts if you like. Just let me know your sizes you want. Nice. And I'll pack them up and send them on their way. That is from Joey Gatherkohl of Sherwood.

Son of Robin. Perhaps. Father of incredulous children. For sure. Uh, well, thanks a lot, buddy. That was fantastic. I appreciate the offer for the shirt. I think we will be taking you up on that.

And in the meantime, if you out there want to get in touch with us to let us know your interesting, amazing story of how you fib to your children, we'd love to hear that. You can go to StuffYouShouldKnow.com and find all of our social links. I'm also at the JoshClarkeWay.com, and you can send me, Chuck and Jerry, all an email to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.