Genetically Modified Trees: A Case Study on the American chestnut Part I: A Walk in the Woods
The summer before Mary’s first semester in college she, her father Jethro, and her sister Ruth were deep in to their weeklong backpacking trip through the Big Ivy area of Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina’s Black Mountains. By now their bodies felt broken in to the rhythm of trail life—dark night skies, soft night sounds, the steady beat of feet on the trail, and the weight of a pack on the back. The trail threaded its way through Appalachian mixed hardwood forests dipping down into cool shady areas dominated by mountain laurel, then up into higher and dryer ridges dominated by oak and hickory trees. Occasionally, the trail would move through cooler and wetter areas growing striped maple and Frasier magnolia. Ruth and Mary, ever the keen observers, noticed a pattern in the landscape—in areas where the soil was rocky and thin an occasional stump stood, in an advanced state of decay, with a small tree shooting up out of it. During a brief rest to enjoy a sip of water Ruth asked Jethro “What are these trees called dad? I keep noticing them in the understory but I have yet to see one larger than a dogwood. They have these fruits with a spikey hull. Here, see?” Jethro and Mary examined the spiny fruit and Mary said “I wonder what is inside the hull? Let’s see.” Using her pocket knife Mary pried open the spiny green hull. Then she dropped the hulls to the ground and what remained were three fuzzy, shiny nuts. “Are these edible?” asked Mary. “They may be.” said Jethro. “I wonder why these trees only appear to grow out of these nearly-gone stumps?” asked Mary, as she squatted to get a closer look at one. Jethro replied “Sounds like we’ve got lots of questions to answer girls. And I think I know just the man who has the answers we want.”
1. What answers do you have? Generate three hypotheses to the questions Ruth and Mary asked above. Why are the trees growing out of stumps?

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