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1. Better understanding of wood‐boring beetle distribution patterns and underlying mechanisms is a central issue for forest protection and management. The primary aim of this study was to detect how these pest guilds are distributed in forests and optimize elimination and control strategies. 2. We placed flight intercept traps in the canopy and understory areas of three climatically different forest types across a large elevation gradient and focussed on two important wood‐boring beetles, longhorn and bark beetles, in Yunnan, Southwest China. 3. The results showed that species richness and abundance of two selected wood‐boring beetles between the canopy and understory areas had different patterns across the climatically different forest vegetation types. Bark and longhorn beetles tended to stay in understory and canopy areas, respectively, based on the recorded abundance data. However, richness data showed different responses to the climatically different forest types for both longhorn and bark beetles assemblages. Bark beetles species richness did not significantly differ between the canopy and understory areas across all three forest types in the present study. Longhorn beetles had significantly higher richness values in the canopy areas of tropical and subtropical forests but lower in temperate forest. 4. The community compositions of both the longhorn and bark beetles varied greatly among forest vegetation types but relatively little between the canopy and understory areas across the vegetation types. Thus, considering different heights and positions in different forests during trap deployment is necessary and needed to optimize wood‐boring pest control strategies when various forest types and pests are targeted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]