Background:
The purpose of this atlas is to highlight the status of the current forests of the United States, east of the 100th meridian and how that could potentially change under several 2xCO₂ climate change scenarios. We present 80 common species of trees, describe their current importance geographically, and through geographic information system (GIS) and statistical analysis, determine the relationship of many environmental variables to the importance of each species. We have also compiled a great deal of life history information on each species and also provided a link to the Silvics of North America manuals (Burns and Honkala 1990a,b) which do an excellent job of compiling what is known about the trees of the United States. We also complement several other excellent books covering the forest resources of North America (e.g., Barbour and Billings 1998, Elias 1980, Farrar 1995, Leopold et al. 1998, Walker 1999). Here, we form a companion to those manuals by mapping, summarizing, categorizing, and comparing among species in a concise format, based on real data from field plots as well as the literature. We also use a statistical modelling approach to estimate distributional changes that could occur under a globally changed climate, according to 5 global circulation model (GCM) scenarios. The predicted changes in distribution as a result of climate change presented here are not highly reliable due to uncertainties and underlying assumptions. They do, however, provide a picture of the sensitivity of species to climate change, the environmental variables that drive the current distribution, and the kind of distributional changes that could happen under a warmed climate. Some of the changes could be truly dramatic.

 Burns, R. M. and B. H. Honkala, technical coordinators. 1990a. Silvics of North America: 1. Conifers.  Agriculture Handbook 654. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. Washington, D.C.

Burns, R. M. and B. H. Honkala, technical coordinators. 1990b. Silvics of North America: 2. Hardwoods.  Agriculture Handbook 654. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. Washington, D.C.

Barbour, M. G. and W. D. Billings. 1998. North American terrestrial vegetation. Cambridge University  Press, New York, NY.

Elias, T. S. 1980. The complete trees of North America. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York. 948 pp.

Farrar, J. L. 1995. Trees of the northern United States and Canada. Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa. 502 pp.

Leopold, D. J., W. C. McComb, and R. N. Muller. 1998. Trees of the central hardwood forests. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon. 469 pp.

Walker, L. C. 1999. The North American forests. CRC Press, Washington, D.C. 398 pp.

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 Instructions:
A brief note on the design of the atlas will help you browse through it better. This is because a lot of information is presented on a "need to know" basis. First of all, please note that once you are familiar with the design of the atlas, browsing will not be painful. We have elected to organize the information by opening new windows for each sub-topic. This, we realize is not attractive to some people. However, this approach will organize the information logically and the windows launched will act as storage for that sub-topic. For example, all help/instructions are organized into one set of windows. All distribution maps open up in another window. Alternatively, if we had piled all the different sub-topics into the same window, it would have resulted in a stack of pages, without meaningful categories and navigation would have been difficult.  Even though we have minimized the number of new windows,  aimless browsing will result in proliferation of windows.
So, read on!

Once you launch the atlas from the main atlas page, you will be provided with a launch-pad of species (you can pick the species from the table or go to an alphabetical list of names). This window is preserved as a launch-pad - i.e., when you click on a species, you will get a separate window (we'll call this the a_species page) with options for that species. However, the top frame of this new window also contains the launch pad. If you wish, you can then delete the main launch-pad window, reducing clutter.  In case you change you mind, there are options to get rid of the species frame, revive species frame and also to open a separate launch-pad window in the bottom frame. Note that your link back to the main atlas page is thru the launch-pad window.
Additionally, the launch-pad window has some products for all 80 species combined. Click that option to look at Forest Type Maps and Ranked Species Lists.

Note that there is balloon/bubble help available as you move your mouse on most of the links.

The menu of options for all species are the same and will appear in the bottom frame of the same window (a_species page) - so you can maintain a history of species in a_species page. This philosophy is maintained for other separate windows launched (read on!).
If nothing seems to be happening when you click, it's because the browser window (in which the output should have appeared) is already open and hiding behind other windows. Even though I have addressed this problem, in JavaScript, it still happens sometimes mainly due to some browser bug!!

Please take some time to study the options you have in a_species page. Some common questions are listed in the  button. Context-sensitive help is your best bet for questions as they crop up. You can also search the entire atlas database by clicking .
There are four main groups of information  about a species ...
The first row will give you some details about the species - Silvics Manual, Life History and Disturbance Response and Ecological Attributes and Status of the Species. Clicking the latter will take you to the bottom of the page (4th row) under that heading. The reason for this is because the outputs will appear in Output Area: on the same page.
The second row gives you Distribution Maps and the Distribution Tables for current as well as 5 GCM scenarios. Make sure that you read  before proceeding. Details about the methodology etc. can be obtained in our1998 Ecological Monographs paper (citation). Make sure that you look into  if you have any problem with the contractions used. We also have included a "Published Atlas Page". This refers to the hard copy of the atlas published by the USDA Forest Service (citation). Note that all the outputs appear in the separate window (MapDistribWin) for maps and (TableDistribWin) for tables.
Context-sensitive help is provided for each of the options.

The fourth row is a jump from the first row (see first row above).
The fifth row is the Output Area for the fourth row.

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 Citations:
How to cite this web page:
Prasad, A. M. and L. R. Iverson. 1999-ongoing. A Climate Change Atlas for 80 Forest Tree Species of the Eastern United States [database]. http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/delaware/atlas/index.html, Northeastern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Delaware, Ohio.

Published articles related to the work:
Iverson, L. R., A. M. Prasad, B. J. Hale, and E. K. Sutherland. 1999. An atlas of current and potential future distributions of common trees of the eastern United States. General Technical Report NE-265. Northeastern Research Station, USDA Forest Service. 245 pp.
(Contact Anantha Prasad for a copy)

Prasad, A. and Iverson, L. R. 1997. Modelling tree distributions in eastern United States using Arc/Info GIS and S-PLUS statistical package. Pages (http://www.esri.com/library/userconf/proc97/PROC97/TO200/PAP200/P200.HTM) in Proceedings, 1997 Arc/Info Conference. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.   Redlands, CA.

Iverson, L. R. and A. M. Prasad. 1998. Predicting abundance of 80 tree species following climate change in the eastern United States. Ecological Monographs 68:465-485. (Ecological Monographs paper)

Iverson, L. R. Prasad A. M. and M. W. Schwartz. 1999. Modeling potential future individual tree-species distributions in the Eastern United States under a climate change scenario: a case study with Pinus virginiana. Ecological Modelling 115:77-93.

Hansen, M.H., Frieswyk, T., Glover, J.F., and Kelly, J.F. 1992. The Eastwide forest inventory data base: users manual. General Technical Report NC-151,U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, North Central Forest Experiment Station. St. Paul, MN. 48 pp.

Articles in press or submitted related to the work:
DeHays, D. H., Jacobson, G. L., Schaber, P. G., Bongarten, B., Iverson, L. R., and Kieffenbacker-Krall, A. in press. Forest responses to changing climate: lessons from the past and uncertainty for the future. in R. A. Mickler, R. A. Birdsey, and J. L. Hom, editors. Responses of northern forests to environmental change. Springer-Verlag, Ecological Studies Series,  New York, NY.

Easterling, M. M., D. R. DeWalle, L. R. Iverson, A. M. Prasad, A. Z. Rose, A. R. Buda, and Y. Cao. submitted. The potential impacts of climate change and variability on forests and forestry in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Climate Research.

Iverson, L. R. and A. M. Prasad. submitted. Potential tree species shifts with five climate change scenarios in the Eastern United States. Forest Ecology and Management.

Sutherland, E.K.,  B.J. Hale, and D.M. Hix.    In press.  Tree regeneration guilds in the central hardwood forest, USA. Plant Ecology.