What happens to insects in the winter?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science, Technology

4.8 • 985 Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When CrowdScience listener Eric spotted a few gnats flying around on a milder day in mid-winter it really surprised him - Eric had assumed they just died out with the colder weather. It got him wondering where the insects had come from, how they had survived the previous cold snap and what the implications of climate change might be for insect over-wintering behaviour? So he asked CrowdScience to do some bug investigation.

CrowdScience presenter Marnie Chesterton takes up the challenge and heads out into the British countryside – currently teeming with buzzes and eight legged tiny beasties - to learn about the quite amazing array of tactics these small creatures use to survive the arduous days of cold.

She hears how some insects change their chemical structure to enhance their frost resistance whist others hanker down in warmer microclimates or rely on their community and food stocks to keep them warm.

But cold isn’t the only climatic change insects have to endure, in the tropics the seasons tend to fluctuate more around wet and dry so what happens then? Marnie talks with a Kenyan aquatic insect expert who describes how mosquitoes utilise the rains and shares his worry climate change could have a big impact on insect populations.

Contributors: Dr Erica McAlister – Entomologist and Senior Curator, Natural History Museum, Dr Adam Hart – Entomologist and Professor of Science Communication - University of Gloucestershire Fran Haidon – Beekeeper Laban Njoroge – Entomologist, head of the Invertebrate Zoology – Museum of Kenya Dr Natalia Li – Biochemist

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Melanie Brown

[Image: Butterfly in winter resting on snow covered branch. Credit: Getty Images]

Transcript

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0:50.3	Ah, summertime in the northern hemisphere. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the bees are buzzing.
0:58.0	Everything seems to be outside and having a raucous time.
1:02.0	But if we fast forward six months to the depths of winter,
1:06.5	you'll notice it sounds pretty different. Now what's missing? While you play audio spot the difference, I should say that I'm Marnie
1:16.2	Chesterton and you're listening to crowd sites from the BBC World Service, the
1:20.2	place where curious listeners get their curious questions answered.
1:24.4	And this week we're on the trail of one of life's seasonal mysteries.
1:29.4	Hello, my name is Eric. I'm from Pittsburgh in the US and my question is, what happens to bugs during the winter?
1:36.7	More details, please.
1:40.1	Okay.
1:41.1	What do you mean? So COVID happened and I started working from home. During that time I'd spend more time outside, especially during the winter. And when we would get a warm spell above freezing for four or five six days I'd notice
	...

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