The chestnut blight of the late 1800’s wiped out all but 4 american chestnut trees in North America, which survive to this day.
The video shows off how the American Chestnut Foundation is studying those surviving blight resistant trees, and experimenting with hybridizing them with Chinese Chestnut trees (which evolved alongside the blight, and are resistant to it), to hopefully someday bring back the American Chestnut to the US specifically to restore the function it played ecologically, as many insects and animals once relied on it.
The chestnut blight of the late 1800’s wiped out all but 4 american chestnut trees in North America, which survive to this day.
The video shows off how the American Chestnut Foundation is studying those surviving blight resistant trees, and experimenting with hybridizing them with Chinese Chestnut trees (which evolved alongside the blight, and are resistant to it), to hopefully someday bring back the American Chestnut to the US specifically to restore the function it played ecologically, as many insects and animals once relied on it.
awesome summary, thanks!