Objective Climate change is reshaping the global pattern of bark beetle outbreaks in coniferous forests and is exposing China’s natural coniferous forests to emerging risks of increasing outbreak frequency, intensity, and spatial extent. Taking global changes in conifer-infesting bark beetle outbreaks as the main framework and China’s natural coniferous forests, particularly the Picea schrenkiana forests in the Tianshan Mountains, as the focal context, this review systematically synthesizes the major damaging taxa, regional outbreak patterns, climate-driven mechanisms, and integrated management strategies.

Method Based on domestic and international literature, this review follows the logic of “global patterns—climate responses—outbreak mechanisms—monitoring, early warning, and integrated management—implications for China’s natural forests” to summarize and evaluate current research progress.

Result Major damaging taxa, including Ips, Dendroctonus, and Tomicus, have caused substantial damage to coniferous forests in North America, Europe, and Asia. Under climate warming, these taxa show pronounced responses, including accelerated development, increased voltinism, higher overwintering survival, and range expansion toward higher latitudes and elevations. Bark beetle outbreaks in China’s natural coniferous forests are characterized by broad geographic occurrence, diverse damaging species, insufficient basic research, and high management difficulty. For example, bark beetle outbreaks in eastern Tianshan spruce forests reflect a cascading process of “climate anomaly—host decline—bark beetle outbreak—stand deterioration.” Warming increases population growth potential by accelerating beetle development and prolonging the effective flight period. Compound drought and heat stress lowers host defense thresholds by impairing water regulation, carbon metabolism, and resin–terpene defenses. Compound disturbances, including windthrow, drought, fire, and stand homogenization, further promote beetle population build-up and spatial spread.

Conclusion Future research should strengthen studies on the biology and ecology of native damaging species, cascading outbreak mechanisms, quantitative assessment of host susceptibility, phenology and risk prediction models, integrated space–air–ground monitoring and early warning, and stage-specific integrated management technologies for natural forests. These efforts will support a shift in bark beetle management from experience-based intervention toward mechanism-driven, model-supported, and resilience-oriented strategies.