The Mautam (II)

The Mautam (II)

 

It was only four years ago when a mysterious plague swept across India. Unlike any plague today it has an eerie meeting every 48 years. What once was thought only to be an event out of myth now frightens the locals…they call it the mautam. This plague was not a virus or germ, but by a widespread famine that struck all of India.

 

NOVA of PBS (in cooperation with National Geographic) took documentation of the mautam in action. In 2006 Biologist Ken Aplin from the Australian National Wildlife Collection and local Indian biologist James Lalsiamliana travel to the province of Mizoram, India to catch the mautam in action.

 

The Mizoram is covered in 2,400 sq. mile forest of bamboo. And every 48 years – like clockwork – the bamboo grass flowers, fruits, and dies. The two thousand square miles of forest will drop 10 tons of fruit…per acre. Over a trillion pounds of bamboo fruit will ripen and drop onto the bamboo floor free for the eating.

 

At its peak performance, a female black rat can reproduce to yield a cycle of over 200 offspring. Take 50 females, and you have 10,000 rats. Only when the bamboo fruit supply diminishes do they move on to the crops of farmers. But the rats need to hurry; once the fruit sprouts, it produces a bitter compound and becomes inedible.

 

The bamboo grass purposely pumps out thousands of fruits each cycle to guarantee fulfilling its biological duty to reproduce and give off more plants. It “knows” that with the plentiful tons of fruits, there still won’t be enough rats in the forest to collect them all. But it is not solely the populous fruit bearings that have given the successful forests of bamboo. They have a secret that is hidden below.

 

After the atomic explosions in Japan during World War II, bamboos were one of the first plants to reemerge. Unlike trees, bamboo is a grass; moreover their roots are not botanically roots – they’re the plant themselves; bamboos are rhizomes. Like ginger, most of the structure of a rhizome is underground in what would normally be called a “root.” For that reason, it is possible to take a section of the rhizome, plant it, and be able to grow another organism. Of course, the initial section must be large enough to sustain itself until it a sufficient shoot can develop.