Science Communication Center
The Pando Tree in the News,
Research and Popular Culture
Providing accurate, timely information about Pando is a core part of our mission to educate the public. When people searching for answers find only false or misleading content, it becomes harder for them to understand what is actually happening at the tree — and harder to see how the work being done helps us become better stewards of it.
Since 2019, Friends of Pando has monitored how people seek information about Pando, and tracked the claims made about it across agency documents, academic research, social media, and the press. On these pages we examine those claims as they appear in the news, research, and popular culture — what holds up, what needs context, and what doesn’t.
We think one of the oldest and largest lifeforms on Earth deserves the best of our imagination, and all of the truth we can tell.
The Pando Conflation/Deflation News Cycle
How we sort claims about Pando — and why it matters
Pando is one of the most remarkable living things on Earth, and that wonder draws a great deal of attention. Most people who write about Pando mean well. But Pando is so unusual that the same handful of facts — and the same handful of mistakes — get repeated from one story to the next, until the errors begin to look and feel true even when they are not.
The cost isn’t only inaccuracy. It’s a failure of imagination, at the very moment we most need to deepen our understanding and build the kind of generational stewardship Pando deserves.
How Claims Drift
Misinformation about Pando rarely begins as a lie. It usually begins as a reasonable claim that quietly loses its context and value as it travels. A careful “we don’t yet know whether Pando is dying” becomes, after a few retellings, a flat “Pando is dying” — or “Pando is 80,000 years old” — a claim that grows louder, more certain and more disconnected from context and reality.
The pattern is consistent enough that we can name its stages.
After 7 years of work on Pando, the pattern is consistent enough that we can name its stages.
THE STAGES
1. Seeding — A claim enters the conversation: a press release, an agency rationale, or a researcher’s quote.
2. Stripping — Hedges and context fall away as it moves. “We don’t know if it’s dying” becomes “it’s dying.”
3. Syndication — One story is copied across dozens of outlets without fresh reporting.
4. “Citation-laundering” — An outlet cites an outlet citing a another’s claims about an idea or study, and becomes “what a study found.” without sources or context.
5. “Mutation” — Facts drift further from the source — for example, an “80,000-year-old” age figure that runs far past what any researcher actually claimed.
6. “Feedback” — The amplified frame becomes the “received truth” that shapes the next round of coverage.
7. “Asymmetry” — Alarm scales and persists, compounded by search engines and AI for years. Corrections rarely catch up.
How to read a claim about Pando
When you encounter a dramatic statement about Pando — that it’s dying, shrinking, breaking apart, or that a single fix has failed — a few questions help separate signal from noise:
– Does the claim carry its original caveats, or have they been stripped away?
– Is it based on a replicable, peer-reviewed study or data set — or on one source repeated many times?
– When something is said *not* to work, is anyone offering a workable alternative?
– Has anyone spoken to agencies or community leaders with actual day-to-day experience working with the tree or dealing with the question or issue?
What we hold ourselves to
We support everyone with a sincere, good-faith interest in Pando’s study and care. There is much work to be done — not only in caring for the tree, but in how we talk about it. We try to lead with field conditions and data, to say plainly what is established and what is still an open question, and to choose patient, day-to-day diligence over alarm.
Below, we look at specific claims as they appear in the news, research, and popular culture — and offer the context that helps a more meaningful conversation about this ancient wonder.After all, we aren’t just talking about some tree in Utah, we are talking about one of the oldest lifeforms on Earth.
In the News
Imagine 5: When a heartfelt story inherits and rests on secondhand errors...
A recent article published by Imagine 5 for the Go Wild Edition is a great example of the Conflation/Deflation cycle in mass media. Lets look at the articles claims and see the cycle in action.
How an incredible lifeform becomes a misunderstood one — and how to read past it
First, what the essay gets right
The heart of it is correct, and worth celebrating. Pando really is one living organism of tens of thousands of trunks sharing a single root system. It really does regrow itself by sending up new shoots — “suckering” — from those roots. It really is ancient, and really is under pressure from too much browsing by deer and elk. And its name really does come from the Latin for “I spread.”
Now, how the cycle can play out…
A quiet tell that a Pando story is running on secondhand material is the pictures. Until 2018 there was no signage marking Pando’s boundaries, so a great many images labeled “Pando” are actually generic aspen from elsewhere. The *Among Elders* essay illustrates Pando entirely with stock photography, not the actual tree.
The publishing team did reach out to purchase photos, but declined to provide details or the full context of how the images would be used. We share our photos freely; outlets often prefer to buy full rights. There’s nothing wrong with that by itself — but full-rights ownership is part of what makes syndication so durable. The same image and story can be re-run for years, which is exactly how an error, once printed, keeps circulating long after the facts are known.
“The largest organism” — close, but not quite and easily verified.
Pando isn’t the largest organism by every measure — but it is the largest tree, in three ways at once. Pando is:
– Largest Tree By weight** — about 13.2 million pounds, roughly three times the giant sequoia General Sherman.
– By Tree by land area** — 106 acres.
– Largest By species** — the largest quaking aspen clone, confirmed by genetic testing.
No other tree beats Pando on even one of these. Pando holds all three.
The claims lacks context, and starts to show how it will rely on other articles to fill in what the authors did not know.
Pando is dying — the most repeated claim, and the least settled
This headline travels furthest, and it deserves the most care. Everyone agrees Pando needs active care, and that care is underway. What no one has done is publish a replicable, peer-reviewed study answering whether Pando is “dying.”
If Pando were truly dying, we would expect clear signs — and we don’t see them:
– The regeneration hormone cycle would have halted. Instead, it’s actively running across the tree.
– Conifers would be moving in. Instead, they remain stunted and sparse.
– Soils would turn acidic and aluminum-rich. Instead, our 2023 study found calcium-rich, healthy soil.
The decline framing leans heavily on one researcher’s work, repeated as settled fact. We respect the attention it brought — but the question is genuinely open.
“Mother roots” — a borrowed metaphor, with the wrong parent
The essay describes “mother roots” that “birth” new trees. Two gentle corrections. First, **Pando is male** — it produces only pollen, so there’s nothing maternal about it; new trunks arise by suckering, a hormone-triggered process. Second, the “mother tree” idea has an author: it was popularized by ecologist Suzanne Simard in *Finding the Mother Tree*. Credit belongs to her work — and her concept describes networks *between separate trees*, which is different from one clone’s internal renewal.
The “toothpick forest” — actually our oldest success story in Pando’s care
The essay reads a fenced area of dense young trunks as a sad, silent “toothpick forest” — a cautionary tale of meddling. We see it the opposite way. This was the first real project to care for Pando, and it worked. Those dense young trunks aren’t lifeless; they’re healthy regeneration, and the stand is **self-thinning** over time, exactly as a recovering aspen stand should. Where browsing was kept out, Pando came back. See it for yourself in 360°: the part of the Friends of Pando’s Pando Photographic Survey.
It’s a wildlife control — not a “fence”
Over 40 years, wildlife controls have played an outsized role in Pando’s protection. Calling them a “fence” makes it sound like its property line thrown up to keep animals out — which is what lets the essay treat it as heavy-handed. The reality is the opposite of crude as the article claims. The wildlife control is a designed system whose layout is shaped by our work with agencies and years wildlife study data — that tells us where deer and elk are, what they are doing and how they move.
The design uses barriers *and* engineered pathways to guide animals around the tree, and it’s adjusted as new data arrives. Today wildlife controls protect 80% of Pando, and importantly, allow us to work inside them to restore and care for what we have.
“The wolves and cougars are gone” — Not in Pando
The essay borrows the many other articles and follows a trope after famous work at Yellowstone — where we saw removal of predators, after which deer and elk populations exploded. Pando isn’t wilderness, it is in a high desert oasis used by humans for a thousand years according to research by Vachel Carter. The writer paints a vivid story, but it’s borrowed wholesale from a place it doesn’t describe — Yellowstone’s logic pasted onto a tree that lives in a place nothing like Yellowstone.
What our wildlife monitoring actually shows:
– The predators are still here.** Our cameras document mountain lion, black bear, coyote, bobcat, fox, and scavenger birds — a full predator community to say nothing about human hunting allowed in the area. So talk of wolves is always a tell. They were extirpated from this region long ago, and a high desert oasis isn’t a Yellowstone-style wilderness — …there’s no way to bring wolves back and have them stay — they don’t stay put just because we’d like them to.
What is also missing is the fact that Pando lives in a high desert oasis.
Less than half a mile from Fish Lake, it draws animals from hundreds of square miles around it, which is why managing browse matters more than any predator story.
And the good news the essay misses: it’s working. Between 2024 and 2025 we recorded sharp drops in browsing pressure — mule deer activity down about 35% and elk down about 63% — while 80% of Pando came into protective care.
The fire that “came within five miles” — but was 15 miles away.
The essay warns that the Monroe Canyon fire “came within five miles of Pando’s western edge.”
In fact its nearest extent directly to the wets was about 15 miles away, on the Monroe plateau to the west. In between, — the Koosharem valley, towns, and farmland below that.
That terrain is the point. Fire spreads through continuous fuel; to reach Pando it would have to run down into an inhabited valley and then climb back up. The “encroaching on Pando’s edge” image implies a threat corridor the land simply doesn’t provide. And aspen are fire-*adapted*: Pando tolerates low-to-medium ground fire, and fire can even stimulate the regrowth.
Re-arranged and same...
| Popular Claim, Oft Repeated | What we actually know |
|---|---|
| The largest organism on Earth | Largest **tree** — by weight, area, and species |
| Pando is dying / breaking apart" | Unproven; no peer-reviewed study has set out to answer this question. The largest studies only describe 1.78% of Pando's landmass, too small a sample to make such a claim even when some have tried. |
| Mother roots birth new shoots | Pando is male; renews by suckering |
| Toothpick forest = failed meddling | Our oldest success; healthy and self-thinning |
| A fence to keep deer out | A wildlife control designed after data to move animals around Pando, and force them into the open where predators can hunt them |
| Wolves and cougars are gone | Cougars (aka Mountain Lions) are present. as are many other predators---and human hunting is allowed. Pando is not Yellowstone, it is an oasis. |
| Fire came within five miles | ~14 miles away and higher, across a valley firebreak |
None of this diminishes Pando. A persistent, 9,000-year-old, 13-million-pound single tree — cared for with patient, data-guided work is part of the human story of what it means to live in a world where Pando is possible. It is also what scientists and land managers have said need be done for decades. Reading past the noise is how we honor it.
Wildlife Protections: Are Fences "Band Aids"?
Background:
In a series of articles between 2024 and early 2025, notable Pando Researcher Paul Rogers has repeatedly stated that wildlife controls (fencing) systems used to protect the Pando Tree are “band aids”. We offer some insights on where that thinking arises from, and how such statements directly contradict the positive role wildlife controls have played in Pando’s protection and care dating back to the 1990s.
Why Is Fencing Used?
Since the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Wildlife Controls have shown to be effective and for good reasons:
- Pando is surrounded by 700 square miles of de facto wildlife preserve right along the largest water source in the region.
- Wildlife are present in greater numbers in Pando’s homeland than in other nearby places because it is the largest freshwater source in the region
- Pando’s homeland forms an oasis that favors large mammals and predators
- Wildlife Controls helps control herbivory from deer and elk
- Deer and Elk can eat large volumes of new growth and can promote the spread of the disease
- Wildlife controls allow us to modulate fluctuations in wildlife populations year-round
- Wildlife controls provide a reference point for animal control. We know when an animal gets in, where they are, and then can let them out
- Wildlife controls are humane. A baby deer or elk that does get inside, will not find any stable water source besides leaf material, which can irritate the animals’ stomachs over time, and could lead to a miserable death due to dehydration.
- Wildlife controls sets the stage for work to restore and promote the health of the tree. We can only work to promote health, if the work is protected from over-browsing. Without wildlife controls, work to monitor, restore and promote the health of the tree would be a lost cause.
- Wildlife Controls helps control human uses of Pando’s landmass such as recreation, domestic animal grazing and off-road vehicle use
- Dating back to the 1990’s, fencing has been shown to be effective not only in wildlife control, but also in promoting new growth and the health of the Pando Tree. as has been found by Fishlake National Forest, Friends of Pando, Grand Canyon Trust and by researcher Paul Rogers and Jodie Gayle’s 2017 Paper “Restoration of the iconic Pando aspen clone: emerging evidence of recovery”
Why Would Someone Say Wildlife Controls are a “Band Aid” or inadequate if they work?
- Wildlife Controls doesn’t solve systemic issues: Some argue wildlife controls are a “band aid” because it doesn’t address systemic issues, in this case, wildlife population numbers in the area. In fact, wildlife controls do address wildlife numbers—inside Pando, where it matters.
- People didn’t think enough was being done and that maintenance was impractical. Wildlife Control Systems must be maintained, and until Friends of Pando was founded, work to monitor and repair the fencing was only done sporadically. People have been left to assume, because of a lack of regular maintenance of these systems, that fence maintenance work is impractical, when in fact, our organization and our agency partners and volunteers have undertaken 160 maintenance and restoration projects over the past 4 seasons.
- Fencing seems “unnatural”. Pando has lived for thousands of years without wildlife controls, so some folks believe their use is “tampering” with “natural processes” while evidence indicates humans have always been part of the Pando’s life. Human activity in the area dates back 10,000 years, while soil samples indicate human interventions and use of the Pando’s homeland dating back to at least 700 CE, according to research by Vachel Carter and the US Forest Service.
- Lack of awareness about how to protect special trees: Many are unaware of successful efforts to protect and take care of other special trees. Such efforts include the use of barricades, wildlife controls, and proactive recreational management. That lack of awareness may lead many to believe that work on wildlife controls is foolhardy.
Contextualizing Care
When you read about or hear claims that fencing doesn’t work or, is a short-term solution, ask yourself the following
- What has worked to protect and care for the tree?
- What manageable alternatives do those who disagree with the use of wildlife control fencing offer?
- When stories about wildlife controls arise, are those making the claim that Wildlife Controls don’t work—challenged to offer a clear picture of what could work better?
Closing the Gate
The Pando Tree inspires a deep concern and care for anyone who has wondered at its staggering scale and ancient ways. It is reasonable to say that in order to take care of the Pando Tree, it will involve more than just wildlife controls. All the same, it is arguably a bad faith argument to say the very thing that has shown to be the most effective in Pando’s Protection and care is a “Band Aid“.
Funding for the Pando Protection Plan is NOT in Jeopardy
Background
On October 16, 2024, The Salt Lake Tribune wrote an article about a project not related to Pando, claiming funding and support for the Pando Protection Project was in question.
The article, written by Anastasia Hufham claims:
“Utah is home to one of the world’s largest organisms: a cloned stand of aspens in south-central Utah called Pando. It’s the largest tree in the world by weight and land mass. This year, the Legislature appropriated $250,000 to the Utah Department of Transportation to help protect Pando. The money is supposed to go toward building a new fence and cattle guards, which will dissuade deer and elk from eating the tree. But that money hasn’t been spent yet. The Department of Transportation is “still working on how best to meet the intent of the funding as the funding is insufficient to fence the entire perimeter of the organism,” the audit reads.”
Facts
- Funding for the Pando Protection Plan was released July 1, 2024
- The Pando Protection Project Team met in Pando on September 11, 2024 to review plans
- The Pando Protection Project Team met on Sept 30th in the Pando Tree to discuss project design. Photos of the event were posted online on Friends of Pando’s Facebook Page
- St. George News published an article detailing work under way project on September 11, 2024 which included interviews with lawmakers and Friends of Pando leaders (Link)
- Salt Lake Tribune syndicated the St George News article in September of 2024 and so, should have been able to reference that, but for some reason did not.
Take Aways
Work on the Pando Protection Project is underway. The Salt Lake Tribune did not reach out to Friends of Pando, UDOT or USFS before making the claim and would not correct what they shared about Pando.
Picturing Pando: Images that are not Pando
Until 2018, no signage was available to indicate Pando’s Boundaries leaving many to guess at where the Pando Tree was. As a result, many images of Pando are not in fact, images of the Pando Tree.
The Pando Tree and its homeland, Fish Lake, Utah
The Pando Tree's outline is drawn to show how the tree's leaves are green while other trees' leaves have already changed for the fall. Image taken by Friends of Pando in September of 2019.
Here is a quick review of popular images claiming to be Pando, but are not.
Big Mountain View (Source: Various)
How Do We Know?
Pando hugs a steep basin wall and is not on the waters edge. None of the Mountains near Pando feature such prominence. (Source: Various)
The Pando Valley? (Source: Various)
How Do We Know? Pando is bisected by Utah Highway 25 (built before Pando’s discovery). The nearest Mountain to Pando in the west is not visible from Pando, which is tucked into a steep basin wall. Lastly, aspen in the image, do not match the shape of Pando, which is clearly visible looking to the west from Coot’s Slough or Mytoge Mountain each spring and Fall.
Red Pando? (Source: The Time of India)
How Do We Know? Pando leaves do not turn red in autumn. As a genetically identical tree (genet) the leave of Pando change to the same color each year—bright gold.
Cattle in the Tree? (Topos Magazine)
How Do We Know? This image, from an article in Topos Magazine purports to feature cattle in the Pando Tree. The photo is attributed to Friends of Pando founder, Lance Oditt, but Oditt has never documented cattle in the tree. Requests were made to remove the image, Topos Magazine never responded.
2021 | Ted-ED Video: Alex Rosenthal
* Most Viewed YouTube Video About Pando
Needs More Context
Minute: 0:36
” She is not even close to being the largest organism by weight.”
Trembling Aspen are either male or female, Pando is male. We discourage use of the word “organism” to refer to Pando as there are other clonal organisms that are larger in other dimensions. Pando is a Tree. It is the largest tree by multiple measures combined.
Needs more Context
Minute: 1:01
” Pando has roughly 47,000 genetically identical clone trunks”
Each individual part of Pando that appears as a tree trunk is known as a “ramet” which refers to the fact Pando is a clone and being one, is a genet. A ramet is an individual part of genet. Botanists would call the bodies (trunks) “boles”.
Need More Context
Minute: 1:08
“Why scientists consider Pando a single organism. ..”
While genetics alone demonstrates that Pando is a single organism, we find it more compelling, that Pando gathers energy and coordinates energy production defense and regeneration across its entire land mass as one organism. You can see that in operation each Spring and Fall when the leaves change.
False
Minute: 1:50
” Dendrochronologist estimates range from 80,000 to 1 Million years.
This often cited dateline is simply wrong. Each stem of Pando only lives to between 130 and about 150 years old. You cannot sample tree rings of Pando that date back 80,000 to 1 Million years. Ice age histories and charcoal studies suggest Pando has been operating for at least 9,000 years and maybe as long as 16,000 years, but other work is needed.
False
Minute: 2:36
” Pando’s corner of Utah remained glacier-free”
The peaks above Fish Lake Basin were covered by glacials until around 13,000 years ago. With glaciers comes colder weather that would have made Fish Lake Basin inhospitable to Pando based on the best data we have today.
Misleading
Minute: 4:07
“Asexual reproduction tends to happen when conditions are favorable to growth.”
Some have characterized asexual reproduction as a stress response. Indeed, the hormone involved in asexual reproduction requires rapid changes in the relationship between auxin and cytokinins for asexual reproduction to occur. That Pando spread so wide was also likely due to large-scale disturbance events that likely killed other trees.
Misleading
Minute: 4:49
” New stems are growing to maturity much more slowly than they need to, in order to replace the trunks that fall”
- To date, we do not have a standard model for expected rate of regeneration we should expect from Pando
- Random survey plot studies conducted between 2014 and 2021 record data from a time of drought in Pando’s homeland
- More studies are underway.
False
Minute: 5:01
” We have deprived Pando of fire”
- A 2021 paper about fire history in Pando by a research team that included notable Pando researcher Paul C. Rogers did not demonstrate evidence for regular, consistent nor intensive, wildfire history in and around Pando’s homeland.
- Fire can be used to spur regeneration and help restore aspen after bouts of disease, but the equation is complex and still a topic of intense debate.
Misleading
Minute: 5:46
“By reducing livestock grazing in the area…”
Grazing was not allowed in 53 acres of Pando’s landmass dating back to the early 2010’s. Since then, grazing was permitted in Pando’s outer reaches for 10 days a year in October weather permitting until 2024. During that period, grazing was only allowed by permit, and grazers had to turn in reports on what was foraged of Pando and face fines for failure to report and for overbrowsing. In the same area grazers were permitted, was also an area where distributed camping was allowed through 2024 which involved large recreational vehicles which also played a role in overall health. Today those areas are protected from all human uses thanks to the Pando Protection Plan.
July 27, 2023 | Fox 13 News, Salt Lake City
"Pando Is Shrinking"
Misleading
“Pando is Shrinking”
The headline is misleading. Pando has been changing shape, size and form for thousands of years. Such claims are based on random plot sampling methods that to date, have shown wide variance. In 2017, research suggested the tree was recovering, a few years later, the tree was said to be “dying”. We simply need more research.
False
“Pando is the Densest Organism”
Fact: Pando is the worlds largest tree, but not particularly dense as aspen are light hungry and spread out across the ground as they race upward toward the sun.
False
“Pando is considered one of the largest and densest organisms”
Fact: Pando is a tree, and is the world’s largest tree. Not the largest organism, not the most dense organism.
Needs More Context
“…The Fabric is getting thinner…”
Rogers is a leading researcher on Pando, however, this claim needs more context. Since the 1980’s, it is said that Pando should produce 400 stems per acre, but we lack the physical data to back that claim up. In our work, we have made repeated requests of USFS and independent researchers to produce the plot study that gave us this “47,000” number. Today, we lack a standard rate of regeneration model (How many new ramets or stems it would produce under ideal conditions). This means claims that the tree is “shrinking”, “breaking apart” or, “dying” require additional study and a healthy spoonful of skepticism. While Rogers has led the charge on research for Pando for many years, none of his studies have been replicated while there are methodological errors (gathering data before regeneration starts, his studies are in June while regeneration starts in July typically after flourish completes in our field studies). While Rogers work inspired concern, (including our own), his research between 2018 and today also coincides with a drought period in Pando’s homeland, today we see flourishes of regeneration in areas that were barren a few short years ago, both inside and outside of the wildlife controls used to protect Pando, which allows us to work inside to advantage and restore the tree.
False
“Deer are herded into the area…”
Deer are not “herded” into Pando, they like all animals come to Pando’s homeland as Pando’s homeland is a veritable oasis for water, cover and forage. What’s more, Pando is surrounded by what is a de facto, 700 square mile wildlife refuge, while Fishlake Basin itself has been used by humans for at least 1,500 years for hunting, fishing, agriculture, commerce and recreation, while nearby sites show human activity in the region going back some 10,000 years.
Nov 22, 2022 | Undisciplined Radio Show
Utah Public Radio | Matthew LaPlante
Misleading
“Fishlake National Forest was clear cutting and collecting firewood from Pando in the 1980’s.”
In our work with the Fishlake National Forest, we have explored the history of management in detail. In this case, Fishlake National Forest accounts indicated staff allowed people to remove diseased trees, a common strategy to rid aspen clones of disease. In addition, sections of Pando have been coppiced (cut to the ground),which is a restorative strategy that shifts the hormone cycle and spurs new growth.
Misleading
“Pando doesn’t get a ton of visitors”
Pando’s home, Fishlake Basin, receives 300,000 visitors each year.
In 2024, according to our passive visitor monitors, Pando received 4,150 hikers, while a campground on pando’s northeastern edge receives some 8,000 campers a year according to Fishlake NF. This means 1 in every 4 people who come to Pando’s homeland in Fish Lake, are coming to see Pando or experience the tree.
Needs Context
“Fences are inadequate”
Fences have promoted massive regeneration in the tree going back to the 1980’s. In fact, fences are the first step to set the stage for other protection and restoration work. Without fencing, little work can be done to protect, restore or study Pando within.
Rooted Falsehoods
Providing accurate information about the tree is part of the Friends of Pando mission. Refuting false, inaccurate and misleading information is equally important. Below is a list of commonly misreported information that sees wide syndication.
"Pando is 40,000 or 80,000 years old"
Fact: There is no way to reliably test Pando’s age. Many scientists believe Pando could not be any older than 8,000 to 16,000 years old, since ice age era weather currents made the area inhospitable.
"Pando is dying"
Fact: Pando continues to regenerate itself. Research by Paul Rogers indicates deer and other ungulates stymie Pando’s growth, but as a recent discovery in a class of its own, we do not yet know the rate of regeneration we might expect for Pando considering all other factors human and non-human.
In simple terms, research by Sam St. Clair about other aspen clones, suggests the “tipping point” of shrinkage that marks imminent death of an aspen clone is about 60% of the arable landmass (Pando is littered with collapsed lava fields, so we have to strike that part of the landmass out). We simply do not see 60% of Pando overrun, in fact, see fewer animals and more regeneration.
If Pando were truly dying, we would have replicable, peer reviewed evidence of the following:
- That the hormone cycle involved with regeneration has halted.
- We would see large scale encroachment by Conifer trees
- We would also see evidence in soil tests showing acidic soil conditions and higher aluminum concentrations coupled with low calcium concentrations.
Today we see the opposite of dying. We see active regeneration across Pando’s landmass meaning the hormone cycle is still active, and broadly so. Our work using low-elevation LiDAR drones shows not only active regeneration and recruitment, but also shows no evidence of large-scale encroachment by Conifer trees which are largely stunted and spread out quite unevenly in most of Pando’s landmass when they are found. Lastly, in 2023, we conducted a soil study of 13 sites across Pando, and those findings show a soil rich in calcium with soil pH that is consistent with what we would hope to find considering the time and timing and weather conditions when the samples were gathered. Importantly, with soil samples, Friends of Pando found rich calcium stores which chemically blocks the action of other heavy metals than can disadvantage new growth.
In all, no one has produced a replicable, peer-reviewed study that shows any one of the definitive ways we would know for sure Pando is dying. While it may be good meaning and headline grabbing, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Until a study can answer all three questions—claims that Pando is dying, are just that.
"Pando is NOT the world's largest tree"
Fact: Pando is five times larger by dry weight than the next largest tree, a Sequoiadendron giganteum named the General Sherman Tree . Pando is also twice the size of the next largest Aspen Clone (106 acres versus 47 acres). Distinctions made by forestry and botanical organizations about the “largest plants” or largest trees vary considerably between scientific domains of expertise. They also vary between scientific groups around the world. Pando is the largest tree when measured by multiple standards (area, weight and species), which is not true of any other tree.
"The Humongous Fungus is larger than Pando"
Multiple fungal bodies bear the name “Humongous Fungus” (Oregon and Michigan each have one, and another “mega-fungus” has been reported in Italy). In terms of raw size, Pando is over 14 times larger by weight than the estimated weight of the “Humongous Fungus” of Michigan. Weight estimates for the Oregon “Humongous Fungus” vary. Third, the statement compares two unrelated “organisms” (see above) where methods and classification systems vary between botany and mycology.
"Pando is splitting into 3 trees or sections"
A spate of news stories in 2022 suggested Pando is “breaking up” and/or has broken into 3 sections. As with previous claims that Pando is dying or rapidly decaying, such claims come without any agreed to reference point for expected regeneration rates for Pando. This is research that could be done, and has been done with other aspen trees, just not with Pando. Absent data on expected or even ideal regeneration rates, it’s compelling that the same research indicates Pando does better where wildlife control systems are in place, than without them.
Friends of Pando is dedicated and working to educate the public, support research and preservation efforts and inspire stewardship of Pando, the world’s largest tree.
Your gift of only $18 a month will help protect Pando for generations to come.
Make a one-time or, recurring tax deductible donation today.
Friends of Pando is a proud partner of Pando’s public land stewards, Fishlake National Forest of the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Agriculture.
Learn more about our partnership.
Friends of Pando and its partners are equal opportunity employers.
Friends of Pando
PO Box 12
Richfield, UT, 84701
Phone: 435-633-1893
IRS EIN: 87-3958681
