BISHOP, Calif. — Forest pathologist Martin MacKenzie strode forward on a narrow path through California’s mythic bristlecone pine forest in the White Mountains near the Nevada border, methodically ...

Trees with smoother bark are better at repelling attacks by mountain pine beetles, which have difficulty gripping the slippery surface, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Limber pine, as seen here along the Sky High Trail, San Gorgonio Wilderness, San Bernardino Mountains, California, can have smooth bark, which discourages bark beetles. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia ...

Clockwise from top left: (1) Two lodgepole pines growing side-by-side with notably different bark textures, (2) a rough-barked limber pine that has been attacked by bark beetles, (3) a limber pine ...

Clockwise from top left: This shows (1) two lodgepole pines growing side-by-side with notably different bark textures, (2) a rough-barked limber pine that has been attacked by bark beetles, (3) a ...

The past two decades have been hard on the West’s conifer forests, which have seen wave after wave of bark beetle epidemics turning once green landscapes brown and gray. The world’s most long-lived ...

Researchers from Montana State University published a study this fall that could help forest managers improve restoration strategies for whitebark pine — an important keystone species currently listed ...