Understanding Insect Behavior and Adaptation During Winter Season

Insects use strategies to survive during the winter period such as hibernation, migration or even overwintering.

Insects cannot generate their own heat

Winter has just begun, and like us, insects need to prepare. Unlike mammals for example, they cannot generate their own heat which allows them to survive the cold which can be freezing at this time of year. Some, like the monarch butterfly or certain species of grasshoppers and butterflies, choose to migrate to warmer areas.

Others remain, voluntarily or involuntarily, in their natural habitat. The latter must then use stratagems to overcome this season. And the least we can say is that there are several. There are, for example, bees, who group together in the hive to form a “warm core” that moves to keep warm.

Others hibernate and overwinter

Other species of insects choose hibernation to cope with winter. The term “diapause” is then used. This is the case, for example, of beetles or certain species of butterflies. This mechanism corresponds to a slowdown in the metabolism of insects, which allows them to survive several months without feeding, very useful when there are no resources, particularly due to the cold of winter. They enter this phase when they feel that temperatures are dropping or when they notice that the days are getting shorter.

Some species overwinter in winter. A bit like hibernation, insects that opt ​​for this strategy enter into a slowdown in metabolism. But they are in a more “present” state, that is to say they are more vigilant to what is happening around them, their brain remains more reactive. This is the case for terrestrial bumblebees, for example, which use this technique.

Other strategies to face winter

There are other ways for insects to spend a “warm” winter. Some use snow as insulation and protect themselves from the cold. Others do everything not to freeze. Like a species of beetle that has an antifreeze molecule, like glycerol, or a species of fly that voluntarily dehydrates itself to avoid freezing.

Finally, some insects change physiologically, such as the speckled wood butterfly, which changes into a chrysalis just before winter and develops into a butterfly several months later in spring.

Source: Phys.org/Futura