Warm, dry winter could end up ‘bugging’ Calgarians
Posted Oct 13, 2015 8:04 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was another warm fall weekend in Alberta and the long range forecast looks to continue that story, with mild temperatures sticking around.
It’s a welcome sight for a city which could just as easily see freezing temperatures and snow in October, but if this trend continues there could be a surprise waiting for us in the spring; bugs! And lots of them.
Dr. Robert Longair, senior instructor in biological sciences at the University of Calgary, says anything that exposes them to less in the way of really cold temperatures is good for their survival through the winter months.
“If the temperatures aren’t really cold, so we don’t hit those minus 30s and minus 40s too frequently, that’s probably going to allow the survival of some of the stages, whether they’re larvae or adults, through the winter better than would normally happen,” he explained. “For the pollination services it’s probably good because there will less mortality during the winter of bee larvae and pupae, but if we’re thinking about wood boring insects it may not be so good because more of them may survive a milder winter like that.”
Longair added a lot of snow can also act like an insulator as well, so it really is a case of insects benefiting from extremes in either direction.
One bug in particular that doesn’t do well when it’s dry is the blood sucking mosquito, so if it is dry and there are less pools of water from snow melt, we may be in for a more pleasant summer.
