Sunday, February 19, 2012

Return of the American Chestnut

The American Chestnut tree was once a dominant tree in the forests of the eastern United States. The tree was once the most economically important tree species eastern forests of the United States. The tree also had a very important role in the ecosystem of the forest, the tree produces edible nuts that many animals consumed. In 1904 the chestnut blight began annihilating the native chestnut tree population. The native chestnut trees did not have any genetic information for blight resistance in the entire population.


Chinese Chestnut


The blight is a fungus that was native to Asia where the Asian species of chestnut had resistance to the fungus. The fungus gets into the cracks of the bark and wounds on the tree and then kills the tree. American chestnut trees continue to sprout up but quickly succumb to the blight.


An American chestnut.


The American Chestnut Foundation has been working on breeding American chestnut with Chinese chestnut trees to yield an American chestnut tree with blight resistance. It is a large task to take on, they need to achieve a progeny that maintains almost all of the American chestnuts genetics while also having the Chinese chestnut's genes for blight resistance. This is further compounded by the need to avoid overly inbreeding the species. When this is finally achieved the trees will be replanted throughout the eastern forests of North America. One day chestnut trees may once again populate the forests and reclaim its niche in the ecosystem and the economy.

There are other organizations trying to repopulate the forests with chestnut trees such as this group; Friends of the Rouge Watershed.
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3 comments:

  1. briairagFebruary 19, 2012 at 10:44 AM

    This is very interesting. I wonder how scientists are going to accomplish in breeding a progeny with mostly Amercian Chestnuts genetics and the gene that provides resistance to the fungi from the Chinese Chestnut. Normally, progeny get 50% of their genes from one parent and 50% of their genes from the other parent. It will a great achievement when scientists if this project is successful.

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  2. alexjFebruary 19, 2012 at 10:53 AM

    @briairag
    By making multiple crosses, similar to the fruit fly lab, a progeny can be produced that is has most traits from one strain and only a few traits from another strain. If you click the link “American Chestnut Foundation” they explain it very well in the first paragraph.

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  3. nicolelMarch 15, 2012 at 8:38 AM

    The American Chestnut was wiped out along the eastern coast of the United States a pretty long time ago. This is great that they are making progress to bring it back and make it resistant to the blight that originally exterminated it. However, they are making it invulnerable to the old blight, what if some new blight comes along and destroys the tree all over again. Has the American Chestnut been gone for too long to be able to bring it back and make it resistant to all of the changes that have occurred in its environment since its last disappearance? Is it worth it? I don't know but this is still really interesting to know that they're working on it.

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