National Individual Tree Species Atlas

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As often happens during the course of developing something new, this National Individual Tree Species Atlas took shape within the context of another project. This came about while developing the 2013–2027 National Insect and Disease Forest Risk Assessment (NIDRM, Krist et. al. 2014). My colleagues and I discovered we needed to create what would ultimately be a considerable refinement to the known extent of each major individual tree species in the United States. Specifically, not only would we need to identify precisely where each species of tree is likely to grow, but also where it is not likely to grow. We further discovered we were not the only people who could benefit from this new precision. Silviculturists, foresters, geneticists, researchers, botanists, wildlife habitat biologists, landscape ecologists—essentially anyone involved in natural resources management, monitoring impacts of climate change (Ellenwood et. al. 2012), or simply visiting America’s forests—also would benefit. Hence, this Atlas. <br>

We began by consulting what was at the time the most definitive source for the geography of trees, the Atlas of United States Trees series (Atlas), by U.S. Forest Service Chief Dendrologist Dr. Elbert J. Little. Published in six volumes between 1971 and 1981, this landmark compendium became our “base of operations” in 2009. During the years leading up to its publication, Little filed through untold thousands of pages of information. He understood the relationship between tree species distributions and environmental conditions. Yet, limited as he was by the technology of a paper map, he knew too much information printed on a single plate (map) would not be useful. His solution to this problem was quite clever. He separated the information that portrayed the natural range of tree species’ distributions from information that represented the environmental conditions, such as rivers, lakes, and plant hardiness zones. The natural range of individual tree species became the maps bound in his Atlas and the environmental conditions were printed separately on nine, nearly transparent vellum sheets (overlays), found in an envelope at the back. By laying a vellum over a map, the reader could make a visual comparison and correlation between the natural range of a tree species and the environmental condition as defined on that overlay. Thus, in all cases, it was up to the reader to establish a relationship (if any) between an individual tree-species distribution on the map and what was depicted on a vellum overlay. By today’s standards the overlays might seem primitive, but they were the best technology available at that time. <br>

There were other shortcomings, as well. Early on, Little recognized that some of the detailed records he produced lost their precision when transferred to the coarse-scaled maps (1:10,000,000 U.S., 1:27,000,000 North America) in his Atlas. As well, he took liberal artistic license when he “connected the dots” between points around an area, within which a tree species was known to exist. <br>

Fast forward to 2009. We could not afford to take the artistic license with the NIDRM project that Little took with his Atlas. More to the point, neither the data Little used nor the maps he produced were dependable or accurate enough for us to use in the NIDRM project. Fortunately, we had access to advanced technology with which to acquire, process, and produce more-precise data. Using data from the Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis program (FIA), and from a predictor dataset consisting of climate, terrain, soils, and satellite imagery, we developed unique statistical models that predicted the spatial distribution for each of the individual tree species in the United States, as measured by FIA. Using these models, we were able to represent precisely where individual species were likely to occur. In turn we were able to use this information to make reliable assessments of risks of mortality, due to insects and diseases, faced by each tree species. As a basis for comparison, we include Little’s original mapped distributions on our maps. We have no doubt that Little would have used geospatial models such as ours in the 1970s, had they been available. They simply weren’t. <br>

Some might think it odd that, at this point in history, 2014, we would produce an atlas in print form. With electronic media being firmly established in the daily lives of most citizens, a digital version might seem adequate to the task. We don’t dispute that assessment. However, as we look forward to a point in time that is long after the technologies used to create and assemble both the electronic and print versions of this Atlas have been replaced, the print version will still be on the shelf in many libraries, accessible by anyone. What is more, this very well could be the last atlas of its kind ever printed. Time will tell. <br>

To accommodate the need for electronic media, we have made versions of this Atlas available electronically. There are several digitized versions of Little’s Atlas online and there are (at least) two versions of this Atlas available as well. One version is a static Adobe® Portable Document Format (pdf) file, nearly identical to this print version, found online (http://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/ technology/remote_sensing.shtml). The other version is an interactive online mapping version (http://foresthealth.fs.usda.gov/ host). With this version, you can view, download, incorporate other data, and conduct analysis of what you can see in this printed version of the Atlas, but at a much finer detail than with any other version. You will find the on-line, interactive Atlas more functional than an ordinary paper atlas. I invite you to access and examine both on-line versions and welcome your feedback. <br>

Inevitably, the information printed on these pages will become obsolete, at which time this printed Atlas will become just a physical point in the historical record—a baseline from which anyone interested in where the trees were in the United States at the turn of the 21st Century can begin to look. To that end, it’s how I began both this project and my lifelong career in forestry. <br>

Suffice it to say that the maps we present here and online are as precise as we could make them. So as this publication goes to press, and with much respect and many thanks to Dr. Little and others both before and after him, we believe our National Individual Tree Species Atlas belongs on the same shelf with Little’s Atlas of United States Trees.

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Reference Code: U15ELL01IDUS <br>

Full Citation: Ellenwood, James R.; Frank J. Krist Jr.; Sheryl A. Romero. 2015. National Individual Tree Species Atlas. FHTET-15-01. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team. Fort Collins, CO. 332 p. <br>

Location: ELECTRONIC FILE - BOTANY: OTHER <br>

Keywords: trees, geographical distribution, maps, forests, forestry, FHTET, Forest Health Protection, Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team, United States <br>