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> The largest organism on Earth, says ABC, is still a huge fungal mat, a single organism spread over 2,200 acres of forest in eastern Oregon. Largest by area.
by finnh 3y ago
> The largest organism on Earth, says ABC, is still a huge fungal mat, a single organism spread over 2,200 acres of forest in eastern Oregon.
Largest by area. By mass you need to go a bit south, to the faint grove of Aspens in Utah known as "Pando".
ofc, Aspens are weird enough that they may be thought of more like a fungus with tree-like fruiting bodies rather than trees per se.
- turnsout 3y agoCitation needed! The Aspen page on Wikipedia doesn't mention fungi at all.
- tarentel 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)
- krisoft 3y agoIt feels this part is what they are asking citation for: "Aspens are weird enough that they may be thought of more like a fungus with tree-like fruiting bodies rather than trees per se". At least the second sentence of their comment seems to suggest that. I read the page you kindly linked but I'm not seeing anything about Aspens being considered a fungus with tree-like fruiting bodies..
- cschneid 3y agoNot literally, but in style. They are clearly trees. But they exist in a large underground network of roots, and spawn trunks upwards over that large area, not unlike how many funguses do. Convergent evolution of an approach to life.
- finnh 3y agoThanks. I'm definitely a layman here, but I lived in Utah about 10 years ago and did some reading on Aspens, which is when I came across that comparison. I was hoping to find a direct citation to post here but haven't managed to do so yet. A fire (or clear cut) can take down the entire overstory of trees, but that living root system will survive & send up more "suckers" that become new trees. It's this "the real life is underground" vibe that makes them particularly fungi-like to me. I wonder if any other trees are like Aspens in this regard...
- tarentel 3y agoI don't think you're going to find a citation to the original post. I don't think they were saying aspen are a type of fungi just that they act like one in some ways.
- mlyle 3y agoHe's the original commenter. He is saying that he was reading about aspens from experts and they made the comparison that the big clonal set of aspens have a lot of properties we'd normally associate with fungi. He wants to find that original source to share but can't.
- svachalek 3y agoRedwoods also grow like this but not to the same degree. They do form "fairy rings" like mushrooms though.
- m4jor 3y agohttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pano-one-worlds-largest-organisms-dying-180970579/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/pano-one-worlds-la... >Weighing 13 million pounds, Pando is the world’s largest organism by mass (Oregon’s “humungous fungus” spans a greater distance). Quaking aspens can reproduce by disseminating seeds, but more frequently, they send up sprouts from their roots and form a mass of trees aptly known as a “clone.” and I was able to find https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-largest-organism-is-fungus/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...
- turnsout 3y agoThank you! Odd that it's not mentioned in the main article.
- samstave 3y agoWhen I was growing up in Lake Tahoe in the 1980s, I would leave the house in the morning to return at dusk, and I often went on a hike up Ward Creek from my house to the backside of Alpine Meadows. Quaking Aspens were my Spirit Tree and I loved being around them. I didnt know at the time that the groves of Aspen were acually all the same tree. But they had a profound effect on me as I hiked and built stuff from them. I used to chop them down and build tee-pees with pine bows as walls... I was like 13 or so. If you got caught in any of my booby-traps, I am sorry...
- xenadu02 3y agoIMHO that stretches the definition a bit. They're clones that happen to have an interconnected root system. Does that really make them the "same" organism? Not in any useful sense of "same".
- freilanzer 3y agoClones sharing a root system definitely sounds like being the same organism, if you ask me.
- tootie 3y agoAnother super interesting fact that never occurred to me is that trees are not a taxonomic grouping of their own. Rather a broad set of characteristics that have separately evolved into a convergent set of traits. So, it's unnecessary to say Aspens are not like other trees because they aren't actually related to other trees. The MCRA of all trees would not remotely be a tree.
- pimlottc 3y agoMRCA = Most recent common ancestor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor
- astrange 3y agoNeither are fish; whales are more related to salmon than sharks are. (So are we.) And yet everyone complains when you say whales are fish.
- tootie 3y agoFish are ancient and sharks in particular. Obviously the record will never be entirely complete but it's possible that sharks have been on Earth longer than plants have been on land.
- adammarples 3y agoPalm trees are closer to grass than tree