Scientists: Aspen trees in West dying

[Kadie]

Scientists: Aspen trees in West dying
By CHASE SQUIRES, Associated Press Writer
3 minutes ago



DENVER - Something is killing the quaking aspen trees of the Rocky Mountain West. The slender, white-barked trees that paint the hills gold every autumn are dying, some scientists say, leaving bald patches across the Rockies. Experts are scrambling to figure out what's happening.

"As soon as we understand what's going on, then maybe we can do something about it," said Dale Bartos, a Forest Service restoration ecologist based in northern Utah.

Bartos thinks a fungus may be to blame, while others suggest everything from hungry caterpillars to drought to man's interference with the natural cycle of forest fires and even resurgent herds of hungry elk nibbling saplings to death.

snip...
Aspen grow differently than other species. Rather than spreading through seeds, aspens send out shoots, called suckers, from giant, interconnected root systems. Each stand, or "clone" system, can live hundreds of years and some consider them the world's largest living things.

The trees themselves are just an aboveground manifestation of the communal root. A tree may die, but beneath the soil, the stand lives on, the root sends out fresh shoots, and the cycle begins again.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060812/ap_on_sc/dying_aspen_1