But there are still several places on our planet that have lasted for hundreds of millions of years. Pando, located in Fish Lake National Forest Park in south-central Utah, USA, is the largest one!
Pandolin is located in the fish lake in the upper right corner.
How did the largest life form in the world come into being?
Pandolin is a piece of Yang Shulin. The scientific name of this kind of poplar is Populus davidiana, which is somewhat different from European poplar. This is a tall tree, with a height of more than 25 meters and a DBH of 20 to 80 centimeters. Its bark is smooth and its leaves turn golden in autumn. Very beautiful!
This tree has seeds to reproduce. They are dioecious. Generally, the mother tree can bear fluffy seeds after 2~3 years, which will be blown away by the wind and fall far away, and sprout to grow a new Yang Shulin!
Surprisingly, all the poplar trees in Panduolin are male, and the whole poplar forest is developed from one poplar. This kind of Populus davidiana can not only reproduce seeds, but also sprout from the roots of the paternal line to form new trees, while Pandolin comes from a seed that floated here about 80 thousand years ago and then took root and germinated.
So far, this forest covers an area of 43.6 hectares, with a total weight of over 60,000 tons, but they are connected into a whole by roots. Although every tree is different in age, the largest is over 1.30 years old, and the youngest has just sprouted, but in another sense, it is a life!
It would be great if human beings had this skill, but unfortunately they didn't, because life could have sexual reproduction 65.438+0.2 billion years ago, and only some species kept this asexual reproduction while having sexual reproduction.
Pandolin, who has lived for 80,000 years and weighs more than 60,000 tons, is dying.
However, this huge forest is rapidly dying out. According to a survey published in the journal PLoS One, Pandolin's health is worrying!
Pan Duolin's aerial photo, from 1939-20 1 1.
Pandolin gradually became sparse. Paul rogers, an ecologist at Utah State University, assessed 65 different protected areas in Pandora Forest. Some are protected by fences, others are not. However, there seems to be no difference between these areas, because all the old trees are left behind, and there are almost no new poplars.
This almost sentenced Pandolin to death, suspended for 100 years. The life span of these poplars is about 100 years. There will be one less death in the future, and Pandolin will become more and more sparse! As the heaviest creature, it is well known all over the world, so its imminent death has attracted global attention, and the scientific community hopes to save it.
Why did Pandolin die?
Paul rogers, an ecologist at Utah State University, found that this is closely related to the lack of diversity genes in Pandora and Pandora's animals. Such a huge Panduolin is only a forest that has lasted for 80,000 years, which is a terrible result, because its genes have not been updated since 80,000 years ago, and its ability to resist pests and diseases still remains in prehistoric times. Insects such as modern leather beetles and diseases such as root rot and canker are endangering tall trees.
Originally, this was a natural elimination, but another reason was that mules and deer multiplied in large numbers, which would eat Yang Shulin's seedlings, thus leading to the aging of Pandolin. Of these two factors, the latter's mule and deer flooding is man-made. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the midwest of the United States began to eliminate wolves and grizzly bears!
Among them, the killing of the last North American gray wolf in Yellowstone National Park 1926 is a landmark event. Since then, the ecology of Huangshi National Park has gradually deteriorated. Because the gray wolf disappeared and the red deer in the park had no natural enemies, the number soared. They eat turf and shrubs, causing a lot of soil erosion and great damage to the ecology of Huangshi National Park.
Therefore, 1995, Yellowstone National Park specially introduced gray wolves from Canada to restore the ecological balance in the park. In fact, Pandolin in Utah is more than 600 kilometers away from Yellowstone National Park, but the gray wolves have also been eliminated, so the number of these mules and deer has risen rapidly, which has affected the ecology of Pandolin. From the aerial map monitoring, it is found that Pandolin began to decline in the 1930s.
I can jump over the high fence.
20 13 began to protect the forest, but the jumping skills of mules and deer were so high that ordinary fences could not stop them. It seems that blocking is not the way. The long-term solution is to restore the local ecology and let Pandolin continue eternal life.
Extended reading: the largest fungal individual
In Oregon, there is Armillaria Auschwitz, the largest fungus in the world. It covers an area of 2,200 acres and has a history of about 2,400 years, but it only extends underground in the form of mycelium/rhizome.