What do insects do all winter?

By Anna Brødsgaard Shoshan, PhD Candidate, Zoology Department, Stockholm University

You are standing in a forest in the middle of winter and the temperature has dropped below zero. The ground is covered in snow and the trees and bushes are naked. The insects that normally fly or crawl in warmer weather are nowhere to be seen.

You might assume that insects do not survive the seasonal shift. After all, temperatures are too low for them to forage and the plants or other insects they’d eat are scarce anyway.

But that is not the case. Actually, they are still all around you: in the bark of the trees and bushes, in the soil, and some may even be attached to…

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