Don't get too attached.

不要太執著。

Today this 1 centimeter crustacean

今天這隻1釐米的甲殼動物

will share the same fate as 40 million of his closest friends:

將與他最親近的4000萬朋友分享同樣的命運。

a life sentence in the belly of the largest blue whale in the world.

在世界上最大的藍鯨的肚子裡被判終身監禁。

Let's call her Leviatha.

我們叫她利維塔吧。

Leviatha weighs something like 150 metric tons,

利維塔重約150公噸。

and she's the largest animal in the world.

她是世界上最大的動物。

But she's not even close to being the largest organism by weight,

但按重量來說，她還算不上是最大的生物體。

which is estimated to equal about 40 Leviatha's.

據估計，這相當於約40個利維塔的。

So where is this behemoth?

那麼這個龐然大物在哪裡呢？

Here, in Utah.

這裡，在猶他州。

Sorry, that's too close.

對不起，太近了。

Here.

給你

This is Pando, whose name means “I spread out.”

這就是潘多，其名字的意思是 "我攤開了"。

Pando, a quaking aspen, has roughly 47,000 genetically identical clone trunks.

潘多，一棵顫抖的白楊，大約有47000個基因相同的克隆樹幹。

Those all grow from one enormous root system,

這些都是從一個巨大的根系中生長出來的。

which is why scientists consider Pando a single organism.

這也是為什麼科學家認為潘多是一個單一的生物體。

Pando is the clear winner of world's largest organism by weight—

潘多是世界上重量最大的生物體的明顯贏家------。

an incredible 6 million kilograms.

令人難以置信的600萬公斤。

So how did Pando get to be so huge?

那麼，潘多多是如何做到如此巨大的呢？

Pando is not an unusual aspen from a genetic standpoint.

從遺傳學的角度看，潘多不是一棵尋常的白楊。

Rather, Pando's size boils down to three main factors:

確切地說，潘多多的規模歸結為三大因素。

its age, its location, and aspens' remarkable evolutionary adaptation

它的年齡，它的位置，以及白楊樹顯著的進化適應性。

of self-cloning.

的自我克隆。

So first, Pando is incredibly expansive because it's incredibly old.

所以，首先，潘多多因為歷史非常悠久，所以擴張性非常強。

How old exactly?

到底多大年紀？

No one knows.

沒有人知道。

Dendrochronologist estimates range from 80,000 to 1 million years.

樹齡學家估計從8萬年到100萬年不等。

The problem is, there's no simple way to gauge Pando's age.

問題是，沒有簡單的方法來衡量潘多的年齡。

Counting the rings of a single trunk will only account for up to 200 years or so,

計算一個樹幹的環數，最多隻能說明200年左右。

as Pando is in a constant cycle of growth, death, and renewal.

因為潘多在不斷的成長、死亡、更新的循環中。

On average, each individual tree lives 130 years,

平均來說，每棵樹的壽命為130年。

before falling and being replaced by new ones.

在落下並被新的取代之前。

Second: location.

第二：位置。

During the last ice age, which ended about 12,000 years ago,

在大約12000年前結束的上一個冰河時代。

glaciers covered much of the North American climate

冰川覆蓋了北美地區的大部分氣候。

friendly to aspens.

對白楊樹友好。

So if there were other comparably sized clonal colonies,

所以如果有其他規模相當的克隆菌群。

they may have perished then.

他們當時可能已經死了。

Meanwhile, Pando's corner of Utah remained glacier-free.

與此同時，潘多的猶他州一角依然沒有冰川。

The soil there is rich in nutrients that Pando continuously replenishes;

那裡的土壤富含豐富的營養物質，潘多不斷補充。

as it drops leaves and trunks,

當它落葉和樹幹時。

the nutrients return to nourish new generations of clones.

的養分回來滋養新一代的克隆。

Which brings us to the third cause of Pando's size: cloning.

這也就有了潘多多體型的第三個原因：克隆。

Aspens are capable of both sexual reproduction—

白楊既能進行有性繁殖---------------------------。

which produces a new organism—

其中產生了一個新的組織----

and asexual reproduction— which creates a clone.

和無性繁殖--這就產生了一個克隆體。

They tend to reproduce sexually when conditions are unfavorable

當條件不利時，它們往往會進行有性繁殖。

and the best strategy for survival is to move elsewhere.

而生存的最佳策略就是轉移到其他地方。

Trees aren't particularly mobile, but their seeds are.

樹木不是特別好動，但它們的種子卻很好動。

Like the rest of us, sexual reproduction is how Pando came into the world

和我們一樣，性繁殖是潘多來到這個世界上的方式。

in the first place all those tens or hundreds of thousands of years ago.

最早在幾萬年或幾十萬年前。

The wind or a pollinator carried pollen from the flower of one of its parents

風或授粉者將花粉從其親本的花上帶了下來

to the other, where a sperm cell fertilized an egg.

到另一個，精子細胞受精卵的地方。

That flower produced fruit, which split open,

那花結出了果實，果實裂開了。

releasing hundreds of tiny, light seeds.

釋放出數百顆細小而輕盈的種子。

The wind carried one to a wet spot of land in what is now Utah,

風把人帶到了現在猶他州的一塊溼地。

where it took root and germinated into Pando's first stem.

在那裡，它生了根，發了芽，成為潘多的第一根莖。

A couple of years later, Pando grew mature enough to reproduce asexually.

幾年後，潘多長大成熟，可以進行無性繁殖。

Asexual reproduction, or cloning,

無性繁殖，即克隆。

tends to happen when the environment is favorable to growth.

往往發生在環境有利於成長的時候。

Aspens have long roots that burrow through the soil.

白楊樹的根很長，能鑽進土壤。

These can sprout shoots that grow up into new trunks.

這些可以長出嫩枝，長成新的樹幹。

And while Pando grew and spread out, so did our ancestors.

在潘多發展壯大的同時，我們的祖先也在發展壯大。

As Hunter-gatherers who made cave paintings, survived an ice age,

作為製作洞穴畫的獵人採集者，度過了一個冰河時代。

found their way to North America, built civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia,

在埃及和美索不達米亞建立了文明。

fought wars, domesticated animals, fought wars, formed nations,

打過仗，馴化過動物，打過仗，組建過國家。

built machines,

造的機器。

and invented the internet, and always newer ways to fight wars.

併發明瞭互聯網，和總是更新的打仗方式。

Pando has survived many millennia of changing climates and encroaching ice.

潘多經歷了幾千年的氣候變化和冰雪侵蝕而倖存下來。

But it may not survive us.

但它可能無法在我們身上存活。

New stems are growing to maturity much more slowly than they need to

新莖的生長成熟比它們需要的要慢得多。

in order to replace the trunks that fall.

以便更換掉落的樹幹。

Scientists have identified two main reasons for this.

科學家們發現，這主要有兩個原因。

The first is that we've deprived Pando of fire.

第一是我們剝奪了潘多的火候。

When a fire clears a patch of forest, Aspen roots survive,

當大火清除了一片森林，白楊樹的根部就會存活下來。

and send shoots bursting up out of the ground by the tens of thousands.

並把筍子從地裡迸發出來，數以萬計。

And secondly, grazers like herds of cattle and mule deer—

其次，像牛群和騾鹿這樣的食草動物

whose natural predators we've hunted to the point of local elimination—

我們已經將它們的天敵獵殺得一乾二淨...

are eating Pando's fresh growth.

正在吃潘多拉的新鮮生長。

If we lose the world's largest organism, we'll lose a scientific treasure trove.

如果我們失去了世界上最大的生物體，我們將失去一個科學寶庫。

Because Pando's trunks are genetically identical,

因為潘多多的軀幹在基因上是相同的。

they can serve as a controlled setting for studies

它們可以作為研究的控制環境

on everything from the tree microbiome

樹木微生物組等所有方面

to the influence of climate on tree growth rates.

到氣候對樹木生長速度的影響。

The good news is, we have a chance to save Pando,

好消息是，我們有機會拯救潘多。

by reducing livestock grazing in the area

減少該地區的牲畜放牧；

and further protecting the vulnerable young saplings.

並進一步保護脆弱的幼苗。

And the time to act is today.

而行動的時間就是今天。

Because as with so many other marvels of our natural world,

因為正如我們自然界的許多其他奇蹟一樣，

once they're gone it will be a very, very long time before they return.

一旦他們走了，它將是一個非常，非常長的時間之前，他們回來。