Perhaps having 47,000 clones with zero genetic diversity has resulted in a population that is unable to adapt, especially vs. species with more genetic diversity.
Why does this population deserve saving rather than allowing new populations to grow & flourish?
Perhaps because as the article states, Pando is considered a keystone species, because of that, if Pando ceases to exist, it will take species dependent on it with it.
While as you say other organisms will fluorish, we must consider the change in biodiversity and not just abundance
I'm just thankful those old cyanobacteria weren't environmentally conscious. None of these modern Eukaryotic species would be around if they hadn't happily 'polluted' the entire planet with oxygen.
We ban accounts that post like this, regardless of how wrong or annoying another comment is. Indeed, you've broken the site guidelines not only by being uncivil, but by feeding a troll. Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not post like this to HN?
The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.
Some forests would have access to evolution via natural selection, but this forest does not. One possible result of selection would be to favor variants that had more bitter compounds in new leaves, to discourage browsing.
It's one organism with 47k appendages. This is my opinion and I stand by it. There's probably way more to learn from Pando than we think, don't delete data that you don't understand.
Same reason for preserving any other thing in nature. It's interesting enough that some might say that the heaviest known organism is a natural treasure, just like the tallest Redwood, or the oldest Joshua Tree, or Bald Eagles, or entire national parks and forests. Even conservation done in the name of something as practical as ecological sustainability ultimately boils down to preserving a slice of nature that we collectively treasure and value.
We kill groves of trees all the time and most of us never think about. It's the nature of our modern society. This mass of trees has a name though. We kill it, and present and future generations won't have another Pando to enjoy.
Personally, I don't like the part of me that says we should kill natural treasures to preserve the economic interests of ranchers, but that's just who I am. It's up to us as a society to decide what kind of creature we want to be and what we want to be driven by.
Sad news, but while Pando is definitely one of the largest organisms on Earth, far larger is a single fungal colony in eastern Oregon that covers 964 hectares[1]
In this case, the title is exact in a subtle way: Pando is the largest known organism by mass, but there are only estimates on the mass of the fungal colony.
Sure, though it isn't like we've weighed Pando either - I would say we just have better estimates of its mass (and of course "largest" is ambiguous as to whether it means area or mass here).
It's good to hear mule deer are doing better though. Montana mulies were getting very rare as a kid because of escaped red deer and hunting pressure (live above treeline mostly vs black tails which live lower on average).
Most USA beef is raised by people who own or rent the land they use. Only in the West do unsavory types like Cliven Bundy get such a sweet deal from the federal government. Even then they barely make ends meet, because the land is so unsuited to grazing. We should end the whole shoddy pretense of grazing fees enabling environmental destruction, but it would take a political miracle to get that through the Senate.
Note: many of these families would HAPPILY buy and maintain the land themselves but the government has decided that holding the land in "trust" and allowing a tragedy of the commons to destroy the landscape is a better idea.
Foraging cattle, allowed into the forest in the summer, are another factor in Pando’s shrinkage.
Foraging cattle in Western USA are one of the two primary threats to the ecosystem, the other being the "wild" horses that we're too stupid to cull. It's criminal that Western ranchers are allowed to destroy land that belongs to everyone in order to barely eke out a meager existence with the tiny herds that land can support, while only occasionally paying pitifully low "grazing fees". Meanwhile the vast majority of American beef is raised in the Central Timezone, by people who own or rent the land they use for pasture. [0]
Any fiscally responsible person would see Cliven Bundy and family in prison. They're already paying a pittance to destroy the environment of the West, and then they cry about even that?
[0] A guy I met from New Mexico a month ago was bragging that they could run 12 head per square mile. We can easily run ten times that density, and more if conditions are right.
> the other being the "wild" horses that we're too stupid to cull.
I'd like to hear more about your take on this. This past August I had an opportunity to take a ride with a lady who had adopted and trained several of these wild horses through an adoption/auction program run by the State of Oregon. To my ears it sounded very effective - the state rounds up the horses to keep them off public grazing lands and cares for them until they can be sold off. Felt like a win-win for nature, the horses, the state, and horse owners.
In my experience less than 1/10 of the wild horses can reliably be sold for this kind of use. In the southwest at least many of the wild horses are simply undesirable for any realistic use case more complicated than the glue factory.
It's wonderful that some are rounded up and sold to people who want them, and it was even better back when there was more demand for cheap horses so that more were sold. The misguided meddlers who ended horse slaughter in USA (against the recommendation of every single association of veterinarians) destroyed the market for cheap horses, so it's no surprise that those numbers are lower. There's no guarantee that any particular mustang will make a good riding horse, so fewer people are willing to deal with that risk. The slaughter ban was bad for lots of domesticated horses about 8-10 years ago (one could drive around and see fields full of starving and neglected horses), but that level of owner is largely without horses at this point. If it's too big a risk to keep a few domesticated horses around, it's certainly too big a risk to buy mustangs.
That's only part of this particular issue, however. Even if five times the current numbers were sold to willing owners, feral horses would still be destroying the environment. They aren't native and they are uniquely suited to disrupting the life cycle of native plants. The American hunter is probably not ready to control this population in the way that e.g. deer and elk populations are controlled. The best solution is probably sterilization, but even that would be very difficult at this scale. That is especially the case given the level of interference that could be expected from the Humane Society, ASPCA, etc.
No, I'm not suggesting that my competitors be "given" vast amounts of capital goods. b^)
You're right that it is pretty good for that state. He said the rule of thumb was one head per square mile per (inch of rain per year). He was bragging about being from some blessed place where they got 12" rather than 8". But the point is that the vegetation is sparse. Even if he raised the capital to purchase land, the desert will only support so many cattle.
Fair, and I'd want the land to be sold, at a fairly steep price to encourage people to do something with it.
I'm with the amount of costs the federal government is passing to Utah for wildfire management on federal land anyhow, so that's def biasing my opinion.
45 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 84.5 ms ] threadPerhaps having 47,000 clones with zero genetic diversity has resulted in a population that is unable to adapt, especially vs. species with more genetic diversity.
Why does this population deserve saving rather than allowing new populations to grow & flourish?
While as you say other organisms will fluorish, we must consider the change in biodiversity and not just abundance
Why?
It's not 47,000 clones, that's off by 46,999. It's one organism.
The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.
any forest would eventually die off under these conditions. it has little to do with Pando being one organism or many.
We kill groves of trees all the time and most of us never think about. It's the nature of our modern society. This mass of trees has a name though. We kill it, and present and future generations won't have another Pando to enjoy.
Personally, I don't like the part of me that says we should kill natural treasures to preserve the economic interests of ranchers, but that's just who I am. It's up to us as a society to decide what kind of creature we want to be and what we want to be driven by.
1: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...
Fungus covers a large area, but each strand is rather tiny.
https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/TechSheets/HardwoodNA/pdf...
We need to get a leash on these ranchers who are making millions plundering our natural heritage and belching massive amounts of CO2 into the air.
Too much of OUR land and too many of OUR resources are handed to these people for them to chop it up and sell it back to us. It needs to end.
Drop the subsidies for the meat industry. Tax the real cost. Tax the carbon. Driving up the cost of meat will incentivize people to eat less of it.
* Pound based on 16oz sirloin precooked weight.
while on the subject, i doubt "many" want to buy, it's much easier to rent, scam and complain.
Foraging cattle in Western USA are one of the two primary threats to the ecosystem, the other being the "wild" horses that we're too stupid to cull. It's criminal that Western ranchers are allowed to destroy land that belongs to everyone in order to barely eke out a meager existence with the tiny herds that land can support, while only occasionally paying pitifully low "grazing fees". Meanwhile the vast majority of American beef is raised in the Central Timezone, by people who own or rent the land they use for pasture. [0]
Any fiscally responsible person would see Cliven Bundy and family in prison. They're already paying a pittance to destroy the environment of the West, and then they cry about even that?
[0] A guy I met from New Mexico a month ago was bragging that they could run 12 head per square mile. We can easily run ten times that density, and more if conditions are right.
I'd like to hear more about your take on this. This past August I had an opportunity to take a ride with a lady who had adopted and trained several of these wild horses through an adoption/auction program run by the State of Oregon. To my ears it sounded very effective - the state rounds up the horses to keep them off public grazing lands and cares for them until they can be sold off. Felt like a win-win for nature, the horses, the state, and horse owners.
That's only part of this particular issue, however. Even if five times the current numbers were sold to willing owners, feral horses would still be destroying the environment. They aren't native and they are uniquely suited to disrupting the life cycle of native plants. The American hunter is probably not ready to control this population in the way that e.g. deer and elk populations are controlled. The best solution is probably sterilization, but even that would be very difficult at this scale. That is especially the case given the level of interference that could be expected from the Humane Society, ASPCA, etc.
You're right that it is pretty good for that state. He said the rule of thumb was one head per square mile per (inch of rain per year). He was bragging about being from some blessed place where they got 12" rather than 8". But the point is that the vegetation is sparse. Even if he raised the capital to purchase land, the desert will only support so many cattle.
I'm with the amount of costs the federal government is passing to Utah for wildfire management on federal land anyhow, so that's def biasing my opinion.
https://archive.fo/3pftd