Whitebark Pine Conservation Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) is an iconic conifer of the American West. With some individuals living up to 1,500 years old, it is one of the longest living plant species! Whitebark pines live in beautiful high elevation ecosystems of the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Mountains, and Cascades Mountains. This whitebark pine is infected with the fungus blister rust. Blister rust, introduced from Asia, is killing whitebark pines at high rates. In this aerial photo of Yellowstone National Park, the brown trees are whitebark pine, infected with the fungus. Whitebark pine is now a prime candidate for the Endangered Species List, and will be reviewed by the federal government soon. The loss of whitebark pine affects several species, like grizzly bears that engorge on whitebark pine nuts prior to hibernation. Whitebark pine faces a “genetic bottleneck,” an event that drastically reduces a species’ genetic diversity.

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Catastrophic Event Jennifer Gruhn, a Ph.D. student at the Garden and Washington University, studies how to conserve this pine’s genetic diversity. Carrots, for example, have a lot of genetic diversity! We need this kind of diversity for whitebark pine, in order to prevent the species from going extinct. Jennifer extracts DNA from pine needles in order to study whitebark pine genetic diversity. Jennifer works closely with the U.S. Forest Service. Here, she discusses whitebark pine conservation with other researchers in the Rocky Mountains. With Jennifer’s work, in concert with the US Forest Service and other universities, we hope to save this beautiful pine species from extinction!