American chestnut (Castanea dentata)
Model Reliability: Current Distribution Only
The Climate Change Atlas is moving to a new platform. Content provided for tree and bird species are accessible from an online application equipped with dynamic mapping. The Forest Ecosystem Atlas can be accessed from https://arcg.is/yyqz4.
Current Distribution Only
The model reliability (ModRel) for American chestnut was too low (< 0.14), therefore only the current Forest Inventory & Analysis distribution is shown.
| GCM SCENARIO | % Area Occ | Ave IV | Sum IV | Future/Current IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual | 0.6 | 0.9 | 155 | N/A |
| RFimp | 2 | 0.1 | 53 | 0.34 |
| CCSM45 | 3.9 | 0 | 51 | 0.96 |
| CCSM85 | 3.5 | 0 | 44 | 0.84 |
| GFDL45 | 4.2 | 0 | 47 | 0.88 |
| GFDL85 | 4.4 | 0 | 48 | 0.89 |
| HAD45 | 4.6 | 0 | 48 | 0.9 |
| HAD85 | 5.7 | 0 | 52 | 0.97 |
| GCM45 | 7.5 | 0 | 49 | 0.91 |
| GCM85 | 7.8 | 0 | 48 | 0.9 |
Regional Summary Tree Tables
Summaries for tree species are available for a variety of geographies, in both PDF and Excel format. These summaries are based on Version 4 of the Climate Change Tree Atlas
Interpretation Guide
American chestnut is very rare (0.5% of area) as resprouts from its former glory days and now its core area is along the Appalachian spine. Its low abundance dictates a model we cannot rely on so that we cannot map potential future habitat. However, efforts to breed the species to be resistant to the chestnut blight, and potentially other onslaughts in the future, provide hope that the species will remain a force in the future.
Family: Fagaceae
Guild: persistent, large seeded, advance growth dependent
Functional Lifeform: formerly a medium to large sized tree