The February 25, 2024 article by Eric Aldrich titled “The Search for “Lingering Trees” Offers Hope for Imperiled Species” was published on The Nature Conservancy’s website, where it can be read in full.
The article discussed how, through the use of apps like TreeSnap, individuals can help identify “the tiny fraction of trees that show strong resistance to invasive pests and pathogens”.
The app, originally developed to help tag individual American chestnut trees that manage to beat the devastating chestnut blight, now lets users input data on 16 at-risk species.
As stated by the article, efforts like these assist scientists “to find individual lingering trees across their natural habitats and carefully breed each type in research nurseries to provide saplings or seed that are resistant to their respective pests or pathogens.”
This article helps to demonstrate the resiliency of nature, especially when compared to “false solutions” like genetically engineering trees, which, if released into the wild, could have irreversible impacts on trees that are naturally resilient to changing climates as well as invasive pest and pathogens.
Note: In the following photograph, members of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees plant blight-resistance wild American Chestnuts in the fall of 2023.
GJEP’s Anne Petermann joins Lois and Denis Melican of the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation in early September 2023 to plant blight-resistant wild American chestnuts. Photo: Orin Langelle/ langellephoto.org