Scientists hope the tree’s genome, all 25,362 genes within the whitebark pine’s 12 pair chromosomes, will help forest managers protect whitebark pines. It's a little like the DNA kits for ...

Tree climbing school participants (from left) Chad Marks-Fife, Megan Schaap, Alaina Makowski and Emily Boes scan a pine tree for abnormalities in Cottage Grove, Ore., on June 14, 2023.

Fewer surviving trees means fewer pine cones for humans to pick and plant. That's what happened in the Fremont-Winema National Forest during the Barry Point Fire in 2012, Kittler said.

First, scientists used a 150-year-old whitebark pine tree in Oregon’s Deschutes National Forest to sequence the first whitebark pine genome, mapping out 87% of the genetic material.