Who and how survives the winter – Survival practices from the insect world

The life of various animal pests is not all smooth sailing. These animals also have their own problems that they must solve in some way if they want to stay alive. Partly, they have to survive the increasingly dry and hot summers in our country, but they also have to somehow weather the winter in the coming months. The overwintering strategies of pests are extremely varied, so it is worth taking a closer look at them. There are some pest insects that do virtually nothing to successfully overwinter. This strategy can be justified if the winter weather sometimes allows pests to survive without any preparation, or if the pest lives and causes damage in a place where it is protected from the cold to some extent. In autumn and winter, we can often encounter large colonies of the green peach aphid (Myzus persicae) in cruciferous crops. Cereals do not want to be left out, so during the winter, we can often find parthenogenetically reproducing and continuously reproducing aphids in their ...