Adaptations to low temperature in high altitude insects from Mount Kenya

Abstract

Abstract. 1. The strategies for low temperature survival in insects on Mount Kenya were investigated. The insects were collected from their natural habitats and their supercooling points and low temperature tolerances determined.2. Most insects showed no special adaptations to low temperature survival and seem to depend on spending the cold nights in protected habitats, such as beneath stones and fallen trunks of plants, as well as within the wet frills of dead leaves of alpine plants, where they are protected by the heat released from freezing water.3. Some insects, e.g. Collembola, aphids and a curculionid beetle, which live in relatively unprotected habitats, had low supercooling points, allowing them to remain unfrozen when exposed to low night temperatures. A nucleator free diet is apparently essential for the survival of such species.4. Two species of curculionid beetles were found to withstand freezing down to ‐7d̀C. These beetles had nucleating agents in their haemolymph and higher supercooling points than most of the other species studied.5. A moderate freezing tolerance was found in larvae of a midge that lives in the watery liquid between the leaves of Senecio brassica.