What's the Largest Living Thing On Earth?

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The biggest thing that has ever lived on Earth… is a tree? Hard to believe, but it’s true. Travel with me to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to go inside the most massive species on our planet, and learn what unique and special evolutionary adaptations let them get so big.

Thanks to Dr. Jeffry B. Mitton (UC-Boulder) for sharing his years of research into giant quaking aspens and for telling us where to go see such pretty fall colors

References:

Mitton, J. B. & Grant, M. C. Observations on the Ecology and Evolution of Quaking Aspen, Populus tremuloides, in the Colorado Front Range. 9 (2021).

Mitton, J. B. & Grant, M. C. Genetic Variation and the Natural History of Quaking Aspen. BioScience 46, 25–31 (1996).

Grant, M. C., Mitton, J. B. & Linhart, Yan. B. Even larger organisms. Nature 360, 216–216 (1992).

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You simply wood not beleaf how big the biggest thing on Earth really is. Enjoy this intreeguing video!
🍄READ THIS BEFORE YOU LEAVE A COMMENT ABOUT THE FUNGUS 🍄: Lots of people are commenting that the large networks of underground fungus (Armillaria ostoyae) in Oregon should actually hold the title. I figured this would come up and should have discussed it in the video. Pando and other aspen stands are measured in dry mass, which is the mass of all the wood and tissue if you took out all the water. The numbers for the "Humongous Fungus" are wet mass, because fungi are mostly water. If we compared only the dry mass of aspens and fungi, the aspens come out way ahead. I had a long discussion with our tree biologist sources about this very question, and the TREES WIN for mass. The fungus does win for covering the largest area though, even if it doesn't have nearly as much dry mass.

besmart
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For everyone who is thinking: “wait, isn’t there a fungus in Oregon that’s larger?” It depends on what you mean by “largest.” Just like both LA and Jacksonville can claim to be the largest city in the USA (NYC with ~8.4 million people, Jacksonville with 875 square miles of area), the Humongous Fungus covers a larger area but the Pando Aspen grove has much more mass of living tissue.
(Edit: for inexplicable reasons I originally used LA for my example instead of NYC, dunno why I was thinking LA was bigger, but I fixed it)

jpe
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My takeaway from this is: dying is really an unnecessary inconvenience that stunts your potential.

unvergebeneid
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Update: Posidonia australis or ribbon weed is the new largest organism, covering 200 square kilometres (77 sq mi) off the coast of western Australia.
Previous largest:
Largest organism by mass: Pando (6, 000, 000 kg)
Largest organism by area: Honey fungus in the Malheur National Forest in Oregon, U.S. (8.9 km^2 or 2, 200 acres)
Largest organism by breadth: Posidonia oceanica, a marine plant in the Mediterranean (15 km)
Largest organism by genome size: Pieris japonica, a rare Japanese flower (149 billion nucleotides)

.
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Ok I’m a big cinematography nerd and the shot composition in this video is amazing!

dabiskitt
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"You're probably ASPEN yourself. ... Pretty unbeLEAFable." The dad jokes are back!

viviannekempers
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Lucky for us, the largest thing on earth is a fun guy

ShortHax
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This is why I love living in western Colorado. This place has so many natural wonders that it's hard to ignore

existentialcrisisactor
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I recently spent three days backpacking in early Fall deep Aspen forests in the southernmost part of the range: The Chiricahua Mountains of SE Arizona. They are doing well after taking over the range after ~90% burned hot a decade ago.

SolaceEasy
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First, I finally knew what the video would be about before watching it.

Second, I love coming back to this channel for the unabashed dad jokes.

Real
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The immune system of these aspens must be very interesting. They are genetically identical clones so if a pathogen is able to attack one tree it should be able to destroy the entire forest cause they are the same tree. This means they can do something very interesting that can stop the spread of infection throughout the organism very successfully. Like genetically identical bananas come under extreme threat when exposed to a pathogen which can harm one member, so what's helping the aspen?

wanderingthoughts
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"Inside the largest living thing on earth"
Eveyone: Don't say it no don't say it
Me: _YOUR MOM_

ThejusRao
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Joe, can you please do an episode on the Ebony tree? It's a critically endangered species of tree I found out about while visiting Mauritius. It has a super interesting story and I'd love to hear your take on it.

doodleandghoul
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This just brings me more wonder and awe to what's on this planet. So cool.

jaipoh
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It sounds like that swamp forest in Avatar The Last Airbender, everything is connected.

bgsputra
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IF this pandemic were to continue any longer and I were to keep eating. I would have turned into the largest living thing literally.

Thebreakdownshow
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I gotta appreciate the drone shots in this video, they were Spectacular!

horan
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As a Canadian, I'm not so sure that climate change will end the Aspen reign so fast, up here the Aspen is well spread across all Canada with the exception that it have an hard barrier up north: the permafrost. As climate change progress and we lose more and more areas of permafrost, we will see Aspens spreading further than ever toward the north. Seeing Aspens spreading in Nunavut will be a bad sign for our climate, but a good sign for Aspens I guess...

TommyCrosby
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Immortal Jellyfish: Finally, a worthy opponent

not_so_anonymous
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Thumbnail: This thing is HUGE
Me an office fan:
That's what she said!!

axem.