Opinion | Hail to the World's Largest Organism - The New York Times

Hail to the World's Largest Organism
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What a relief! The title of world's largest organism may no longer belong to that creepy giant fungus lying under the ground in northern Michigan. A new, more comely candidate from Utah has been nominated.
It was a shock last April to learn that the dainty mushrooms found on the forest floor in Michigan's Upper Peninsula were but the visible manifestations of a single genetically uniform fungus. It had been extending its tentacles beneath the ground for more than 1,500 years, maybe even 10,000 years, before butting into other underground giants.
That mega-fungus now covers more than 30 acres and weighs 100 tons. And scientists think even bigger fungi may lie undetected elsewhere. Who can blame this page for fretting, at the time, that the fungi might inherit the earth?
Now comes welcome news that an even larger organism has been identified in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. It's a huge stand of 47,000 quaking aspen trees and stems, growing from a single root system, that covers 106 acres, is genetically uniform and acts as a single organism. When the trees change color in the fall, they do so in unison, like the card section at halftime of a football game.
Surely this is a more fitting champion. It weighs 6,000 tons, 60 times as much as the fungus. Its root system is alleged to be intact, whereas the fungus was acknowledged to have many tiny breaks in its network of tentacles and mushrooms. And it can march over hill and dale, as it has for thousands of years.
Most important, it is beautiful and non-threatening, an inspiration to artists rather than a subject for horror movies.
Identifying the largest organisms was once a simple task. You could see them whole, as living entities bounded by skin or an outer covering. The largest were thought to be whales, elephants and giant sequoia trees; the giants of yore were the dinosaurs.
But now, armed with the fancy new tools of genetic analysis, scientists are tempted to define as an organism anything that is genetically uniform and clumped more or less together. Even if no one can see the whole thing, or even be sure it is intact.
Give record-conscious scientists enough time and they will surely find an even bigger organism to crown as champion. Can something be lurking, as yet undetected, beneath the quaking aspens?
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 16 of the National edition with the headline: Hail to the World's Largest Organism. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe