Bugs Below Zero

Seems obvious, right? A stream with trout.

But it takes more than just flowing water to make a stream a trout stream. Trout need cold water to survive. Cooler water enables water to hold more oxygen. Forested areas along streams and rivers (known as riparian areas) provide shade and help to cool water. Such vegetated areas also help prevent erosion, filter pollutants, and provide food and shelter for fish and other aquatic organisms.  

Duluth, Minnesota, is home to 16 designated trout streams. Despite their challenges, North Shore streams have two things in their favor. First is their cool, northern, lake-moderated climate. Second is the deep-forest bank cover, which shades the streams and keeps them cool. These influences keep these streams just cool enough to support trout.

Bugs are everywhere in the summer, but have you considered what happens to them in the winter? 

To increase public support of environmental science and engagement in stewardship efforts, it is important that communities understand and value the year-round dynamics of aquatic ecosystems. Despite the long Minnesota cold season, there is little awareness of cold-adapted insects and their critical role in groundwater-fed streams and trout populations. 

This project expands access to educational resources that raise awareness about the winter life of bugs, inspires citizens and classrooms to unlock some secrets of winter food webs, and engages new citizen scientists in winter research efforts. This project builds upon early success of the program called Bugs Below Zero, piloted in 2020-2021 by a multi-disciplinary team of University of Minnesota faculty and students, in which participants learn about, observe, and photograph insects on the snow. 

New activities proposed here expand outreach and strengthen the potential for community-building, engagement, and data-sharing with participants of Bugs Below Zero. This project also provides new virtual field trips and outdoor learning experiences for a diverse set of classrooms and citizens that will take place in the winter, a time when experiential learning opportunities are often limited.

Learn how to join BBZ's participatory science effort to collect valuable project data on snowy days.

Related content:

• Check out this student-led website called Bugs Below Zero on discovering winter aquatic insects in Minnesota.
• Chironomidae Research Group

This project supports Sea Grant's mission to enhance the practical use and conservation of coastal, marine, and Great Lakes resources in order to create a sustainable economy and environment.

The target audiences for this project include avid trout fishers, teachers, K-12 students, and anyone else interested in learning more about this topic.

This project is funded by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).

2024

• February 2024: The Bugs Below Zero project team hosted a winter event with K-12 students at the Belwin Conservancy. 

2023

• October 2023: The Bugs Below Zero project team is developing a virtual event aimed at engaging undergraduate students and community members in collecting winter macroinvertebrate data to contribute to a community science project.
• July 2023: The Bugs Below Zero project team is in the planning phase for hosting two more events for K-12 students and teachers in collaboration with the Belwin Conservancy and the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge as well as other virtual components for teachers and classrooms. Keep an eye on the Minnesota Sea Grant events page for updates.

2022

• December 2022: The Bugs Below Zero project team hosted their first two community events. 
  • The first event occurred at the Bell Museum on Dec. 10, 2022. The event included 1) a demonstration with live aquatic macroinvertebrates and a living stream, 2) a station where families could learn about the importance of winter stream food webs in Minnesota and help construct a food web, and 3) a caddisfly decoration station where kids and families learned about caddisfly life cycles and then could decorate their own caddisfly drawing. Visit the Bugs Below Zero project website for educational resources from this event.
  • The second event was a webinar, "Macroinvertebrate Mania," that was shared with K-12 teachers and classrooms in schools in Minnesota.
• July 2022: The Bugs Below Zero project team received funding from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The funded project began on July 1, 2022, and ends on June 30, 2025. The official title of this project is "Bugs Below Zero: Engaging Citizens in Winter Research."
  • The project is led by University of Minnesota Associate Professor of Agricultural, Food, and Natural Resource Communication Rebecca Swenson. Co-PIs include University of Minnesota Professor of Entomology Leonard (Len) Ferrington, University of Minnesota CHS Digital Media Instructor Troy McKay, and Minnesota Sea Grant Extension Program Leader; Fisheries and Aquaculture Extension Educator Amy Schrank.

2020-2021

• The Bugs Below Zero project team developed and conducted three hands-on, interactive events intended to help build human capital and demonstrate the importance of CSS (cold stenothermal species) in the winter sport fishing industry and to the health of trout streams. The three events included:
  • A streamside workshop on winter stream macroinvertebrates held on Feb. 27, 2021, at Browns Creek near Stillwater, Minnesota. Workshop attendants included students in the Mounds Park Academy Science Club.
  • A virtual presentation to the University of Minnesota Master Naturalist Program on Feb. 26, 2021. The presentation was titled, “Bugs Below Zero: How citizen volunteers can improve understanding of stream food webs in the winter.”
  • A trout and invertebrate workshop held on Feb. 22, 2020, in St. Paul, Minnesota for members of Trout Unlimited Chapters in Minnesota and Wisconsin. 2020-02-22 trout and invertebrate workshop flyer.pdf. Credit: Amy Schrank.