B.C. wildfires devastate wildlife habitats, but some insect species thrive in the ashes | 24CA News

B.C. has skilled an unprecedented wildfire season that has had a devastating affect on many wildlife species, however a few of the animal kingdom’s smallest residents have tailored to thrive on this difficult surroundings.

Dezene Huber, an ecosystem science professor on the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), explains that there are particular bugs, like woodboring beetles — which he calls “pyrophilic insects” —  that really hunt down hearth and smoke. 

“These woodboring beetles…fly towards smouldering burnt-out areas so that they can lay their eggs on trees that have been weakened by the fire.

“There are going to be different bugs like wasps which may prey on these beetles …[ and] hunt down fire-prone areas as effectively,” he told host Sarah Penton on CBC’s Radio West.

Eggs laid on fire-sterilized soil and burned trees to avoid predation

British Columbia has been grappling with over 1,500 wildfires that have burned over 15,000 square kilometres of land across the province this season, according to the latest statistics from the government. B.C.’s Ministry of Forests told 24CA News that it has yet to assess the blazes’ impact on wildlife.

Aaron Bell, a doctoral student studying biology at the University of Saskatchewan, says about 50 to 60 insect species globally are known to be pyrophilic, and they have developed the trait of laying eggs on fire-killed trees and heat-sterilized soil through evolution as a survival strategy.

“Forest soils are usually chock-full of small micro-arthropods like mites that readily devour insect eggs. But the intense warmth from wildfires dramatically reduces invertebrate numbers in soils, successfully sterilizing the soil.

“Pyrophilic insects capitalize on this short window of opportunity and lay their eggs in the heat-sterilized soil before mites and other invertebrates recolonize the burn,” Bell wrote in his commentary.

Bell says additionally they lay their eggs within the tissues of fire-killed bushes.

Some bees have bother with respiration amid smoke

But not all bugs fare effectively within the aftermath of wildfires. Huber says pollinators like bees and butterflies face challenges with respiration within the smoke-filled surroundings.

“[Small particles] can affect the lifespan of some insects,” he stated. “[They] can get into those [insects’] airways and block them.”

The presence of those particles additionally impacts their potential to scent pheromones emitted by potential mates, making it more durable for them to seek out companions, Huber provides.

Despite the difficulties, some insect species can survive the wildfires, even when they aren’t pyrophilic, Huber stated.

“If we think about ants, for instance, they’re lucky because they can go underground — if the fire is not too intense, they’re sometimes the first things to start to take over after the fire goes through.

“Certain bugs, like dragonflies and butterflies, migrate lengthy distances, and it has been proven that in a few of these migrating bugs, in the event that they sense smoke, they will hunker down for a time period, and so they will not keep it up with their migration.”