we lose the world’s largest organism,we’ll lose a scientific treasure trove

But it may not survive us.New stems are growing to maturity much more slowly than they need to in order to replace the trunks that fall.Scientists have identified two main reasons for this.The first is that we’ve deprived Pando of fire.When a fire clears a patch of forest,Aspen roots survive,and send shoots bursting up out of the ground by the tens of thousands.And secondly, grazers like herds of cattle and mule deer—whose natural predators we’ve hunted to the point of local elimination—are eating Pando’s fresh growth.If we lose the world’s largest organism,we’ll lose a scientific treasure trove.