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Gil, I think I remember reading somewhere that Chestnut was the dominant hardwood in Southeastern forests before the blight...Geo

OK, read the article. Make that 25% instead of dominate hardwood species. The site of the trees found at Pine Mountain is pretty close to the farm where we hunted this Spring in Upson County. During the Cold War, the area was advertised as one of the best places to avoid radioactive fallout in case of a Nuclear attack. Something about the configuration of the mountains and prevailing winds. Maybe that has something to do with the Chestnuts not being infected?...Geo

I know a of a very large chestnut tree in Allendale, SC that bears abundantly each year. It is probably 70 feet tall, big tree. Wonder why the blight did not, has not, seemingly affected it?

SRH

http://www.acf.org American chestnut foundation. Restoration efforts have been ongoing for years by crossing blight resistant trees. Blight really was a natural disaster. 1 of every 4 trees was dominant! Grouse range in the southeast closely mimics the historical range of the American chestnut as well.

I am pretty sure that I have also run into some in North Dakota. These had been clearly planted deliberately, as landscaping, and were not where you would expect to find them (I was quite taken aback, actually, to see one!). Perhaps they were isolated far-enough from other biomes to make vectoring the disease impossible? I do know that one near where I grew up would try to grow every few years. It would make a good start, and then the blight would knock it back, seemingly killing it. This would happen again and again in my time there, even though there were no other Chestnut trees in the vicinity. I'm guessing the "blight" organism lives in the soils there?

There are a couple different projects going on to try to breed in blight-resistance.
One is this transgenic approach. http://www.esf.edu/communications/view.asp?newsID=3062
I'm not really fond of transgenics, but, hey....
Another is a classic back-crossing approach.
http://www.acf.org/r_r.php
http://www.acf.org/mission_history.php
These folks sell a cross-breed tree
http://www.chestnuthilltreefarm.com/store/c/31-Dunstan-Chestnut-Trees.aspx

A friend here in Maine has a couple chestnut trees in his front yard - they bear well even though they are only about 15-20 feet high. Tasty, too. I told him to put a couple leaves and nuts in an envelope, stop by the local government forester's office and drop them off with no return address, just to mess with the guy.

Surprisingly, the squirrels leave them alone. They may have forgotten they're good to eat.

Some weeds can mutate into herbicide resistant weeds. Palmer Amaranth is one foremost example. Maybe some trees have developed a natural immunity to the blight. All that's necessary is for a plant to survive the disease, then reproduce. The offspring have resistance.

SRH

Large mammals and birds have disappeared EVERYWHERE shortly after humans showed up. It happened slowly in Africa, where the animals had millions of years to adapt their behavior as protohumans became more efficient hunters, but a bunch of large carnivores disappeared very early as australopithecines/early H. habilis/erectus evolved into the carnivore/scavenger niche. Then Africa essentially stopped developing and most of the remaining big stuff has lasted until now; wildlife numbers today are probably .1% what they were when Europeans showed up 150 years ago.

Extinctions of the megafauna happened far faster, but still over tens of thousands of years, as humans moved into Eurasia and exploded in numbers. It happened in just thousands of years in Australasia and North and South America as highly efficient human hunters moved in, accompanied by dogs, which made them far more effective than humans alone. A bunch of very large birds disappeared from New Zealand as soon as people arrived.

That is not to say that climate didn�t play a role in some cases but climates have been shifting back and forth rapidly for the past couple of million years, and all the big stuff lasted through all those changes. Until humans showed up. Same story on every continent, every oceanic island. In spite of various scenarios by which climate changes are held wholly responsible, the near-simultaneous appearance of humans and rapid extinction of all the big stuff cannot be coincidence over and over again. We did it.

Damn, I had to change what I wrote because the preview pane rejected the genus name for Human as [censored]!

No [censored]-sapiens, eh? I'm not familiar enough with the data you're citing about the overlay of human populations and megafauna die-offs to refute it, but it certainly sounds plausible. Humans could indeed be responsible for the extinctions you mention, but is it hunting or something else? Admittedly, pesticides and corporate farming weren't around then.

Damn! You're right, it censored me too! I'd consider testing the censor, but I don't want to have it fail unexpectedly.

[censored] Homini Lupus Est...just checking that out...Geo

The human species is being rendered extinct by a computerized censor....