So we're here in the pando clone.
People drive through it, don't even realize they're in the pando clone.
Or we'll get phone calls and people really wondering what is this pando clone and it's
an aspen stand here on the Fishlake.
You have highway 25 that goes right through the middle of it.
The pando clone is 106 acres.
Scientists say there is an estimated 50,000 trees here in the pando.
The interesting fact about the pando clone is that scientists are claiming that it's
the largest living organism in the world that has been DNA tested.
So there might be other larger organisms but based on DNA, this is the largest living organism
in the world.
The pando clone is as the latin word frames it as "I spread".
The problem with the pando clone it's not that necessarily that the overstory is dying,
or some of the clone is not doing well, but we're not getting any regeneration to replace
the parts that are dying.
So from a Forest Service perspective, yeah, that's a problem.
When there's no regeneration to replace those that die.
This behaves in a lot of ways like any other aspen stand.
They get old, they die, new stuff comes up to replace the old.
And in this case, the old stuff is dying, there's not much new stuff to replace it.
Typically we would expect aspen stands should be able to regenerate on their own.
I've heard it estimated by scientists that this stand could be upwards of eighty thousand
years old.
That's a guess, but it gives us an indication that they're very, this stand is very old.
And when you see the pando, there's no regeneration for the most part occuring and that's not
typical of what you would expect from an aspen stand so, that's the problem is the root systems
are not sending up the succors or if they are, they're not having success in being able
to grow into mature trees to perpetuate itself.
Yeah, so, that's why we're doing this study, we have a theory, that herbivory is playing
a role in it, as the plants come up.
They're browsing the plants off.
And so that's one reason.
Another thought is that the pando is just old.
And doesn't have the energy reserves to send up succoring.
Other ideas are that it has fungus and a type of fungus that's causing it's problems.
Just one other item too is that aspen stands like disturbance.
When they're disturbed through fire, mechanical, different types of treatments, they regenerate.
And so that's, those are the things we're looking at with the pando clone to try to
figure out why it's not regenerating as well as it should on it's own.
The fence that we've placed around portions of the pando clone, there's 106 acres and
we've fenced off approximately 90 acres of it.
To remove the browsing issue.
The cattle and the deer.
And to be able to see what role that was playing in this.
Then we can compare it to areas that are not fenced off.
And get a better feel for the browsing part of it.
So the fence was to address the grazers.
So as you know when you run some scientific tests, you try to eliminate something so you
can get a better or a more accurate reading on what that test is.
So I think what we're going to find as we do the studies in here, although the grazers
may play a role in it, they aren't the only thing that's causing the decline.
There are different varieties of beetles, bores, some of these trees here, with the
black on them and what not are caused by a bacterial infection.
When we had our insect and disease specialist here, she suspects this is what's called shephards
crook, caused by a fungus that's effecting the regeneration, or atleast the top leader.
The top leader would be something like this.
This is your top leader.
So it effects it.
Comes down to about this point here on the tree, causes the top of it to bend over like
this called shephards crook.
So some of that is going on in here, not affecting all of the regeneration, but some.
So there was a prescribed burn, removal of juniper.
Which the suspicion there is that the common juniper that you're seeing here competes with
and or can outcompete regeneration and the third one was selective cutting to remove
some of the overstory to promote succoring.
So those are the three things we're trying right now and we'll see how that shakes out.
This is likely a regeneration response from the burn that was done in the spring of the
year.
Like all aspen stands, they function as clones.
So they reproduce by succoring.
So the root system under the ground is all one family or they all are of the same DNA
makeup.
And so that's how all aspen stands are.
A clone all looks the same.
Basically they, when they leaf out in the spring they do it at the same time, and as
you look out across the landscape you'll see one clone leafing another clone next to it
not leafing in the fall when they change colors.
The clone will typically look the same and then be different than another clone right
next to it.
So you can, just by looking at a clone kind of begin to say that's an aspen clone in itself.
Certainly aspen is an important plant community and species that we have on the Fishlake and
on most of our forests.
We look at the aspen as a keystone species for what they provide on the landscape, aspen,
they're highly productive areas, they have high diversity in plant and animal life, they
are important to our watersheds.
And so as managers and as scientists, we want to understand how aspens function so that
we can make good decisions in the way that we preserve and utilize our aspen stands and
because pando was assigned a name and people have taken interest, we decided on the Fishlake
that it was important that we preserve the pando clone and try to better understand how
it functions and also to understand the problems that the pando's having.
I think that's a role we have as land managers to be mindful of the uniqueness of this area
and try to sustain it.
The goal obviously is to maintain the pando clone.
And from my perspective that's always meant not just maintaining it for us here, but our
kids and their kids because the mission of the Forest Service is to maintain these types
of things as well as the rest of the Forest for future generations and not just for ourselves.
So that's my hope and goal.
We'll see if we're successful.