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LordEarArse t1_ix31l35 wrote

First there are billions of insects and billions of individuals will not survive winter.

Different species adopt different strategies to get through. Some rely on their eggs to carry the species on; they lay them in sheltered places: under tree bark, leaf litter, underground. Some attempt to find sheltered places to hibernate. Some allow their entire population to die off leaving only the fertile queen to make it to Spring.

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NeilOffTheYoungOnes t1_ix4dx36 wrote

Some, like the arctic woolly-bear caterpillars, just spend most of their life frozen. Just thawing out for one month a year to eat a bit, before eventually very briefly being a moth.

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Jeramus t1_ix3br9r wrote

Some insects like butterflies also migrate to warmer climates in winter.

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allsystemsslow t1_ix47zja wrote

This is why it’s good to leave your leaves until 7 consecutive 50 f degree days in the spring.

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Fthewigg t1_ix4fgza wrote

I just heard this for the first time. I wanted to do a final mow to clean up the remaining leaves in the yard before winter and I was advised not to for this reason. The early cold sealed the deal: you’re safe from me, bugs.

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Jimbo--- t1_ix6b97m wrote

I'll pick up and mulch the leaves on my lawn, but leave all my planting areas alone. I've got a few acres of woods that the bugs can hang out in, too. The leaves help protect your plants over the winter, too.

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ImNotYourOpportunity t1_ix49a46 wrote

Why is that? Do they live in the leaves or something?

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wishbonesma t1_ix4bnfb wrote

Yep, eggs and larvae often overwinter in fallen leaves, especially if you have trees native to your area.

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Foxs-In-A-Trenchcoat t1_ix4la3l wrote

Yes, if it's at all possible, you should leave a pile of leaves on a corner of your property for native insects to hibernate in.

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ImNotYourOpportunity t1_ix6btau wrote

I hate insects but I do understand their contribution to the eco system so I shall, moving forward, leave out some leaves for my insect homies. Granted, said pile will be far from my actual house but I got a decent amount of yard.

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Foxs-In-A-Trenchcoat t1_ix3io45 wrote

They have small molecules in their body called osmolytes (trehalose is one example, which is a nonreducing sugar) that are natural antifreeze. The solutes lower the freezing point of the body's tissues and fluids to much lower than plain water, so the insect may not freeze at all. Or if it does freeze, the osmolytes also prevent the internal water from forming into sharp little ice crystals, which would cause damage to the animals' tissues. The osmolytes also protect biomacromolecules like proteins from being denatured/damaged from harsh environmental conditions.

However, not all individuals survive even with adaptations. Every freeze/thaw cycle kills a lot of them. Or there might be a limit of how low a temperature they can survive.

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perta1234 t1_ix3l0b2 wrote

You are correct. Might just add that for "summer adapted" physiological state, without the antifreezes, it goes other way round sometimes. Getting some warmth now and then helps. In case you know and can share some of that physiology, would be happy to hear more.

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Foxs-In-A-Trenchcoat t1_ix3m2pi wrote

Those are heat shock proteins that an animal manufactures in their own cells. These are small proteins that stabilize other proteins that help to prevent them from being denatured by high temperatures.

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suhdaey t1_ix4jwbc wrote

Is it being a non-reducing sugar critical? Thanks in advance.

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Foxs-In-A-Trenchcoat t1_ix4l097 wrote

Yeah, it's less reactive. Sugars are typically carbon rings, and if they reduce, that means the ring breaks open into a carbon chain. One end of the chain then has an aldehyde group which is available for chemical reactions. Sugars that stay in ring form are more stable, less reactive chemically.

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chouchchair t1_ix5rc1m wrote

Not at all. Glucose, for example, is used as an “antifreeze” compound in several organisms. It’s more about increasing the osmolality in the extra cellular fluid. If this is done effectively in an organism, the extra cellular fluid may freeze, but the water content has been mostly drawn out of the cells themselves so they won’t lyse during freezing.

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Pythagorantheta t1_ix42s2m wrote

Laurence Klauber, probably the best expert on Rattlesnakes was astounded when he saw them crawling across a snow field in December. He then started studying microclimates. Even on a day with temperatures far below freezing there are places where the temperature can harbor warmth that are difficult for us to see, but insects, mammals, and reptiles have evolved ways to detect these microclimates and make them home.

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Interesting-Month-56 t1_ix368sd wrote

In addition to the strategy of laying eggs then dying, many insects are perfectly capable of surviving extremely cold temperatures.

While not an insect, I once found a highly active spider on a pine tree while snowshoeing in January in the Colorado mountains.

Another way to survive a harsh winter is to bed down where it’s warmer - underground, in rotting wood, in compost, in animal dens, or underwater.

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Qadim3311 t1_ix53suk wrote

In addition to what many have said about insects that are adapted to living in natural environments that get very cold, some pest species actually take advantage of the fact that we keep our things warm to live in colder climates than they would normally be able.

Cockroaches, for example, would be largely confined to their original warm-weather ranges if they didn’t have warm, food rich human structures to hide out in all winter up North.

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Traditional_Story834 t1_ix4kis5 wrote

I know Bee's can generate heat by vibrating, they can generate so much they use it as a defense for the hive. Invaders get surrounded and are actually cooked to death. It's how some species have been dealing with murder hornets. Some will make a ball of bees that trade being on the outside and the inside to preserve as much of the hive as possible. Depending on where they are only the queen and a handful of drones will survive. Sometimes they all survive if they are in your attic.

As for other insects, the frost line is something like 4-6 feet below the surface so stuff like ants that live underground are completely fine. Anywhere sheltered from the wind that has biological processes will often stay above freezing. If you crack open a haybale in the middle of winter, just it rotting can cause the middle to be steaming it is so warm. People stranded on the prairies have climbed inside them to survive. Anything that is sheltered and stays out of the wind can survive 1000x longer then most people realize.

And there's eggs and larva that have natural antifreeze that just freeze no problems at all.

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Fallacy_Spotted t1_ix4sljy wrote

Antifreeze stops the freezing. Cryoprotectants reduce or prevent harm while freezing and thawing.

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BogusHype t1_ix58r16 wrote

There's a beetle called a bark beetle that burrows into the bark of the tree (ruining the tree, this is considered a serious pest) and hopefully survive the freeze. The forest loving people hope there's more than 4 Months of freeze so the next year will have less bark beetles. This I learned in New Mexico in the forests in the mountains near Santa Fe. The beatles are basically everywhere though. Very prevalent.

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WhyalwaysSSDD t1_ix5fzg8 wrote

The mountain pine beetle in the Canadian Rockies, presumably south too, will cosntantly have swarms unless there is 3 consecutive weeks of -30°c to knock the population back. Wucks to have to endure it but it is nice when the mountains aren't all brown with dead trees that then light on fire.

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BogusHype t1_ix5gbqf wrote

Maybe it was 4 weeks instead of months. This was years ago somebody told me.

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WhyalwaysSSDD t1_ix5gydt wrote

Might be a different beetle down there too. Up here if you aren't absolutely miserable then the beetles will live. The past 2 years we have had 3-4 weeks of daily highs below -30° and it did knock them back, but the few years before it never got that cold (-25°max) and they flourished. A lot of fire tinder.

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BogusHype t1_ix5hkmr wrote

A sort of speckled spotty thumbnail sized little guy with pointy shoulders?

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MoskriLokoPajdoman t1_ix4jzbn wrote

it depends on the type of insect, a lot of them die, but lay eggs in the ground or in rotten logs, and those eggs make it through the winter, then hatch in the spring/summer.(grasshoppers and katydids do this)

(some overwinter as larvae or pupae, usually underground. (beetles are a prime example, Saturniidae, a group of moths do this, too, and they're not the only ones.)

and some migrate, like the Monarch butterfly.

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