Researchers decode mountain pine beetle genome, raising hope of end to widespread two-decade infestation

The mountain pine beetle infestation that began in B.C. forests almost two decades ago has caused billions of dollars in damage but research by genetic scientists may point the way to finally ending it.

The Canadian Press reports scientists at the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at the University of British Columiba have decoded the beetle's genome.

The team of researchers, including scientists from the University of northern B.C. and the University of Alberta, published their findings in the journal Genome Biology on Wednesday.

Unravelling the genetic code of the beetle, whose scientific name is Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, gave insight into aspects of its makeup that help it survive.

The study describes the mountain pine beetle as "the most serious insect pest in western North America," which has destroyed more than 18 million hectares of pine forests, five times larger than Vancouver Island, with devastating impacts on forest health and the lumber-based economy.

Pine beetle outbreaks were common but what's made this one different is its persistence. In the past, a long stretch of very cold temperatures was enough to arrest an infestation after a year or two. But warmer winters, perhaps induced by climate change, have allowed the beetle to survive and spread.

The beetle has crossed the Rockies into northwestern Alberta and there's concern it could eat its way across the country through the northern boreal forest.

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CP reported last year that a confidential B.C. government report warned the continued infestation could badly damage B.C. Interior communities both economically and socially as supplies of timber for logging dwindle.

The new genome study found wide variations in genetic coding among individuals of the beetle species, CP reported. That characteristic allows the beetle to adapt its eating habits from its preferred lodgepole pine to other species such as jack pine.

Its genes also allow it to get past a tree's defences and more easily suck up nutrients, eventually killing the host tree. Infested timber stands are easily identified by their distinct orange colour.

“We know a lot about what the beetles do,” Christopher Keeling, a research associate in Prof. Joerg Bohlmann’s lab at the Michael Smith Laboratories, said in a news release. “But without the genome, we don’t know exactly how they do it.

“Sequencing the mountain pine beetle genome provides new information that can be used to help manage the epidemic in the future.”

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Meanwhile, the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations is in its second decade of beetle countermeasures.

The province says the infestation has slowed down considerably since 2005 but the latest computer modelling projections indicate about 58 per cent of the province's pine volume will be killed by 2021. That's actually good news, because previous estimates put the figure at 80 per cent.