Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this January 11th, 2024.
Have your host, James J, and I am joined by one of our favorite people,
Anna James, Regional National Natural Resource Educator with UW-Madison Extension,
Wood County, and a good to see you.
You're good to see you, too, James.
I say one of our favorite people.
I should also include my mother in that.
I ran into my parents this morning,
checked in on them, grabbed some coffee,
and my mom's like, why are you smiling about it?
I was like, I'm talking with Anna later today.
I know I'm going to learn something.
She got excited, too.
So no pressure.
Well, thank you, James, as mom.
Yeah, yeah, this is big fan, big fan.
And we love talking with you.
I generally mean that.
And I know our listeners learn things from talking with you.
And oftentimes, even if we're not necessarily learning something,
we're getting a different perspective,
or maybe even just backing up something that we knew already.
And that none of these things can ever be taken lightly.
We really appreciate the work you do.
Oh, thank you.
We're going, we're talking winter today.
Winter is here.
Yes.
Winter is coming.
Winter is here.
Yes.
And adapting to that.
Yeah.
Well, I was sitting there during the Tuesday storm
and thinking about what we would talk about today.
And I really was struggling.
And then I looked outside and I was like, huh.
All of these trees are surviving the winter.
All of the animals outside are surviving the winter.
And how much time do we actually think about how they do that?
How do they survive these storms?
These winter storms, right?
We get to stay tucked into our house, snuggled under a blanket.
We go to the grocery store first, right?
We prepare for the storm coming so we can huddle.
We can huddle inside.
But how do animals, how do trees, how do plants do that?
When they don't have the luxuries that we do, right?
So I figured today what we would do is maybe talk a little bit
about winter averages in Wisconsin.
And then some of those strategies that animals
and plants use to survive winter.
When I first moved up here, this was one of the earliest things
that I came here in the winter months when I first moved up.
And I couldn't understand how these animals did this.
All the animals I saw were in zoos.
And they got taken care of in the winter and everything.
They had somebody looking out for them.
I see these raccoons.
I see squirrels.
I see all these rabbits.
And these animals that I think are great and they're awesome.
But I'm worried about that.
And I tell my not a pop of this.
And they fell on the floor laughing.
They, Jimmy, they're okay.
They know how to do this.
And my Nana shows me this, like, see this chipmunk?
And I'm watching this chipmunk.
And he grabs a nut and he runs away.
And that same chipmunk comes back and grabs another one
and goes away.
And it started to click.
It started to come through.
And I think this is a topic that most of us
feel like we kind of lightly know.
Yeah.
But we've never really had a chance to dive into.
Right.
And there's some really, really cool strategies.
I can't wait to talk about.
And some that might make you laugh at the end.
So just to maybe put it into perspective a little bit.
So in Wisconsin, our winters usually start
at mid to late November.
And then they can last generally march.
Sometimes we'll have snow in April, right?
That's not uncommon.
So our coldest months in Wisconsin are January to February,
where average temperatures are around 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
But we can see lows in the negatives.
So I mean, we have a couple of days coming up
where we will not reach above the single digits, right?
And lows into the negatives.
Wisconsin's actually lowest recorded temperature
was on February 2nd in 1966.
And the lowest recorded temperature
was negative 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
Yeah, that's really cold.
That's incredible.
That's right, right?
I can't even wrap my mind.
No, I can't either, right?
And then obviously where Wisconsin, we get snow on average.
It kind of depends, I guess, where we're at in the state.
So in central Wisconsin, kind of northeastern Wisconsin,
our average snowfalls are 40 to 50 inches per year.
But then you get in the snow belt up in Vialis County.
And they usually have around 100 to 125 inches a year,
which is a lot of snow.
Yeah, yeah.
19 oh far, we had our greatest 24 hour snow fall on record.
And that was 26 inches in Nielsville in one snow storm.
Wow.
Yeah, so that's, I mean, who knows how much snow
we're going to get here with this next storm, right?
I think we got maybe eight inches last storm.
Yes, it's so.
I think they're calling for another, maybe nine, right?
That's not 26.
No, that's still, wow.
Yeah, that's it.
A lot of these stats, I think we've heard similar things before.
I've never thought of that one, and I've never heard that one.
Greatest 24 hour snowfall.
That was an interesting one.
That's a great one to look up.
That's a good one.
Yeah, and it actually was a lot harder
to find some of this information than what I thought it would be.
So anyways, why don't we just dive right into how plants like trees
and our biennual plants, some of our perennials survive?
So trees in our temperature zone have evolved with adaptations
to avoid some of the freezing temperatures
that we do see here in Wisconsin, right?
So the trees that we have are especially,
like they have specialized characteristics
to make them survive here.
So we'll talk about deciduous trees first.
So those are maples, oaks, birch, and other trees.
These are the trees that drop their leaves in the fall.
So when they drop their leaves in the fall,
that is an preparation for winter.
So they're going to drop their leaves
and that eliminates the amount of water
that they're having to utilize throughout the winter season.
So that's an preparation for them having to store water
so they don't actually freeze.
So trees could freeze if they were utilizing all that water
and then the freeze would kill them.
Wow.
So these trees will store most of their water as sap,
right?
Our maple tree is that sap.
That's where you get syrup.
They'll actually store a lot of that water as sap
in the root systems where there's less of a chance of freezing
because the root systems are insulated in the soil.
Yep, well then when they actually drop their leaves in the fall,
that's adding an extra layer of insulation
and then you have snow and then come spring,
those leaves that are around the trees
spring, they're kind of all decaying,
that nutrients just goes right back into the root system
and it's kind of like a cycle.
So the leaves that fall, they're decaying,
the nutrients go back into the tree
and then that helps them grow in the spring.
So it's just like this really cool system.
Yeah, yeah.
And in these trees evolved to this,
they didn't start out doing this.
They sort of evolved to this, you would say.
Right, or it's hard to tell, maybe?
It's hard to tell, right?
It's hard to tell.
That's a million dollar question, right?
Fascinating though, that's really, really interesting.
Yeah, yep, yep.
So it's really cool that trees, right?
We don't really think of them as a living creature a lot,
but they are, they're really neat.
That is growing in knowledge though.
The more we're learning more about root systems,
what's going on beneath us in the ground.
How they communicate?
Fascinating.
Close your mind, the way fungi communicate and all these things.
I go to a rabbit hole for days on that stuff.
Like, what happened to James?
Like, I said, he's got his laptop.
It's really interesting.
It is, yeah.
And then we also have to be mindful of our evergreen trees.
These are our spruces, our pines, and our furs,
some cedar trees, and they have adaptations to winter.
So these are your Christmas trees, right?
So these are the ones that maintain their leaves
throughout the winter.
They're actually, their needle-shaped leaves
have less of a surface area,
so they don't hold on to or snow can't compact on them, right?
And then they're actually, the needles are covered in cutin,
which is like a waxy substance that cuts water loss
and then also protects them from freezing.
Conifer trees also maintain a certain amount of photosynthesis.
Your round that provides nutrients to the tree.
And then the sap of evergreen cherries
is much stickier, like much more viscous
and it's not as susceptible to freezing.
So that's why if you're going to cut a Christmas tree down,
or you put like your hand on a pine tree and you get that sap,
it's really hard to get off your skin, really difficult.
And then the shape of those evergreen trees
is actually a strategy for them to live
throughout the winter as well.
So if you think about a Christmas tree, right?
That's that conical shape that they have.
That helps the, have any heavy snow fall
fall from the trees.
Yeah.
Right.
So just the shape of them is really unique to think about,
or else if all that snow were to pack on,
a lot of their branches would die off,
or would fall off.
And then when you have a branch that falls off,
it leaves an open scar.
So just the shape of the tree is an adaptation or a strategy.
I would never have thought that.
That's really wild.
That is really interesting.
I don't want to brag,
but in the last year or two,
have learned the difference between annuals and perennials.
Don't want to show off here or anything,
but I've been learning a little bit.
No, I don't know that much.
I don't know that much.
But I finally did understand the difference
between these things in perennials
and Wisconsin are another interesting one.
They are.
Yeah, perennials are the plants that come back year after year.
And they have some adaptations as well.
So in Wisconsin,
we have perennials like asters,
golden rods,
and many others that have learned to adapt.
So the above ground portion of these perennial plants
will die back.
Usually we see them,
you know, they're at the end of their growing season,
right, that could be late summer,
that could be late fall depending on the plant.
But that above portion of the plant
will die off,
but their root system remains active throughout the winter.
So their root systems are protected and insulated
by the snow, actually.
And then that helps the plants grow back.
So when we have snow,
we're thinking of snow as being an insulator
for all of those root systems underground,
which is really cool.
Yeah, they're making use of the season.
Right, right, and it's a season of rest, right,
winter is a season of rest for everybody,
rest in restoration.
In many cases, some of the perennial plants
actually need to go through a winter season
in order to grow the next season.
So those seeds need to go through a season of winter.
And then the moisture freezes those seeds
and expands them so that the seed will break,
like the hard seed shell breaks much more easier
and then they'll be able to grow, come spring.
Beautiful, just nature, man.
It is just beautiful.
That is awesome.
What about, this is now talking about the plants, the trees,
that's something I hadn't thought much about.
But with animals, we were touching them before.
I've thought about this one before.
What about with animals and how they handle the environment?
Yeah, so there are two environmental cues
that trigger physical or behavioral changes in animals
that helps them prepare for winter.
And these two cues are photo period,
like our day length and average temperature.
So once the photo period, day length starts to get shorter,
temperatures drop, these adaptations will start to kick in.
Ecologists have found that animals respond
to these environmental cues in three different ways.
Now I'm going to go into the more scientific way,
and then I'll break it down a little bit.
So there's three terms.
The kiano files, which is a Greek word meaning snow loving
are animals that thrive in the snow and coldly,
and cold conditions, snowy and cold conditions.
And so these animals are, like we think about
the animals maybe in the Arctic, right?
They thrive in those conditions.
Then we have kiano fours, and that's from the Greek word
in meaning snow tolerating.
So these do not have like a definite adaptation for life
in the snow.
Instead, they'll change their behavior to survive.
So we think about hibernation, right?
That's a change in behavior.
Right.
And then we have kiano fobes, which fob usually means no thank you.
So kiano fobes are from the Greek word meaning snow fearing.
They're not able to adapt to the snow on our most commonly found
in warmer regions in the winter.
That's migration.
So in simple terms, we have animals that use
three basic strategies to survive winter.
They hibernate, they migrate, or they tolerate.
Not that different than us.
Right.
We know plenty of people that just love this time of year,
other people that are just going to hibernate,
they're just going to hide and then stay in the home.
So they're going to migrate even.
Yeah, exactly.
Going south for the winter.
Yeah, it's funny.
So we see all of these, you know, humans as much as the animals
have adapted to winter as well.
Yeah, we, I don't know that we spend enough time thinking
about this stuff.
It's interesting and all that.
It's also, I find it inspiring.
Yeah, I generally do.
So much of what you've told us already
and some of the things that, you know,
we see in our day-to-day life,
I find it very inspiring.
Cardinals do something interesting
when they're in this time.
Yeah, so we see Cardinals all throughout winter,
right? They're not a bird that generally migrates.
So they have a really cool behavior.
Well, they will puff up their feathers.
When they puff up their feathers,
the air will get trapped into their feathers
and that provides them an extra,
like, layer of insulation against the cold.
Yeah, so, and then their beaks,
they have these cone-shaped beaks
that help them crack open different seeds.
So they can survive and they can eat in the winter.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's one of those birds that you,
it's so beautiful to see in the winter.
We almost associated with winter,
the red on the white snow,
so much of that.
Never thought about why they didn't migrate.
I never really, like, huh, that's interesting.
Wow.
And you know, it's funny that you say
we associated a lot of cardinals a lot with winter.
I don't know how many Christmas decor things I've seen
where there's, like, a cardinal on a snow globe
or a cardinal and so, but it is true.
So when you see a cardinal,
know that they do have special adaptations
that help them live here throughout the winter.
Amazing.
Just amazing.
And then, so, rough grouse are kind of a funny one.
They're an upland gamebird species is what we call them.
We have them.
Some of them around here,
some of them more up north.
So they combine a seemingly irrational behavior
with a really specialized anatomical adaptation
that makes for the perfect grouse igloo.
Oh, right, right.
I told you some of these were going to be kind of odd.
And here we go.
So grouse, they can eat enough buds in a half hour
to sustain them for a day or even more.
Because they have such a large crop,
which is a part of the esophagus where they can store food.
And then they will choose to digest that later.
So in very cold temperatures where we have snow,
grouse will actually dive bomb headfirst into the snow
and then they'll work their way down
until they're completely covered up in the snow.
So they're making like this igloo around themselves.
And then that the body heat that they have will actually
heat their little, you know,
hut up, I don't know what you call it,
but just like their little space
up to a couple of degrees above the air temperature.
And then with the food stored in their crop,
they don't have to worry about going out,
you know, every hour or so to eat.
They can just sustain themselves on the food
that they harvest and stored, which is really interesting.
It's, it's also, I can't help
as you're saying that realizing, you know,
and I know human beings do similar things to this,
but it's wild to me and the animal kingdom when this happened.
They didn't get an instruction book.
Like, there were head to be a grouse that figured this out
and showed everybody else.
And how to figure something like that?
You know what?
I'm just going to dive on into the snow and make this work.
Yeah, it's amazing.
I know it's just, it's just so interesting.
And so I don't know if some of the listeners
have ever been out walking through the woods
after a fresh snow fall.
I have, I love it.
I'm an upland gamebird hunter.
So I will go out there and my dogs and they'll,
they'll be out there and then they'll,
they'll go into a hard point or you'll flush
or you'll almost step on a grouse.
It's like, what do you do?
You don't even see that they won't be there, right?
So that's, it's a really cool adaptation,
an interesting to think about.
Bear is certainly famous for hibernating
and that what about them?
Yeah, so they, I think that's one of the ones
where we know that they do it, right?
We know that bear is hibernate.
But how do they sustain themselves
throughout an entire season with being asleep,
not waking up, not eating, right?
So they will, they'll forage a lot more.
They'll put on all of that way throughout spring,
summer and fall and then when they go into winter,
right, they're hibernating, they're sustaining themselves
off of those reserved nutrients that they've stored
in their bodies.
But a cool thing that they do is they will actually recycle
their urine during hibernation to utilize the nitrogen
in their blood, their guts and their liver.
So this conserves their strength, their muscle mass
and promotes healing from injuries
that they went into hibernation with.
Wow.
Yeah.
Just, I mean, bears are incredible to me in general
and learning, and I did not know that.
Yeah.
And learning that, like I only just gains even more respect
and the one of the most perfect, like, creatures
on the planet, the way they were built,
the everything about them.
This is amazing, okay?
And I didn't even know that part of it.
That only brings it all the more home, like I stand
on that statement.
That's really amazing.
They're really amazing at the most.
They are, they are.
It's really unique.
And then we have, I want to talk a little bit
about our migrating species.
So mainly some of our songbirds,
a majority of our songbirds, right, will migrate.
And then a majority of our waterfowl species will migrate.
You do have what I like to refer to as
some of those lazy mallards that will stay around mallards
or sometimes geese.
They'll stick around for as long as what they can.
They'll just hold onto that cold,
they'll hold onto whatever open water that they can find.
But they actually have a really cool strategy
to adapt to the cold so their feet don't freeze.
So in their feet, they have arteries and veins
that act as heat exchange.
So their legs are intertwined with arteries
that carry warm blood to their extremities,
like their feet.
And then their veins carry the cold blood back to their heart.
So the heat is exchanging from arteries to veins
before the blood reaches their feet
and that prevents frostbite.
So a duck's feet will never freeze.
Whoa, wow, that is impressive.
That is, and I got to get that.
I got to get that feature.
That seems like a great feature to have.
I got frostbite mitos.
That's a great feature to have.
That's a great one.
That's really interesting.
Man, that is wild.
You know, another thing that comes to mind too
is we're talking about this, Anna,
as somebody had to discover these things.
A gigantic thank you to the scientific community
spending so much time with our animal kingdom
and learning and understanding so much of this
and getting this research.
Right.
And it took curiosity, right?
I'm sure somebody was just standing there in winter
and saw all of these lazy air quotes, right?
Lazy mallards that chose not to migrate and thought,
hmm, how are they here and their feet not frozen?
We have, in this neck of the woods over here,
we have a family of albino deer that I take pictures
of every chance I get.
I was six or seven years I've been watching this family
and these things.
Deer are certainly one of the more popular animals.
We see this time of year.
What about white tail deer?
Yeah, so white tail deer are really cool.
I think you can see them, right?
They're out, throughout most of North America
or most of North America I'll say,
but depending on where they're at
depends on what their body size is like, right?
So we have, generally in Wisconsin,
we have pretty big body deer up in Canada.
You can see very large-bodied white tail deer.
So they've got a really cool strategy
where in the fall,
they will start to shed their summer coats
and they'll replace them with their thicker undercoat.
The thicker undercoat is dark.
So in spring, when you see a deer,
normally they're shedding their winter coat.
They have that light, really beautiful tan color to them.
And then in winter, they get darker with their winter coats.
So their overcoat will grow.
And like I said, it's darker.
They'll actually have longer hair
and then the hair is hollow
and these hairs are called guard hairs
and they'll absorb heat from the sun
to help insulate the deer's body.
Wow, wow, that is impressive.
That's again, nice feature to have.
Nice, that's a pretty cool thing to be able to do.
So when it comes to all these animals we've talked about,
I think the one that really escapes a lot of us is amphibians.
We definitely don't really think much
about a amphibian's this time of year.
Nope, nope, we don't think about amphibians
like our frogs or turtles,
but man, do they have some odd adaptations?
And I think maybe some of the listeners
are gonna get a kick out of this.
So when we think about some of the most amazing
overwintering adaptations,
we think about those that amphibians have.
So some Wisconsin frogs,
like mainly our spring peepers and our wood frogs
they'll actually freeze solid during the winter.
Like a popsicle, they'll freeze solid.
It's so curious.
So when temperatures fall, the frogs will start to insulate
themselves in leaf litter on the forest floor,
anywhere where they can really find shelter
and good insulation.
Their body temperature will drop to freezing
and then their metabolism will first speed up
so they can produce like a natural antifreeze.
Yeah, that's, that's great.
I know, this natural antifreeze is a type of sugar
called glycol that helps them not to freeze.
And then their frogs, the frogs,
they'll usually, they will gradually stop breathing
and then their hearts will stop
and their brain waves will cease.
Whoa.
So in all medical terms, these frogs are dead.
Yeah, yeah.
Right?
No.
No, they're not.
No, no, no.
Come spring, they fall out and they resume their lives.
Just, just, did you imagine that?
Like is a human being?
Like that's one of the weirdest things,
like your hot solo basically.
Like cryostasis, the only thing.
What's went on, guys, what do I miss?
Oh, man, is that a while?
I never heard that before.
Yeah, just so curious.
What about turtles?
Yeah, so turtles are one, it's kind of funny what they do
but we're just gonna dive right into it.
So most turtles spend the winter under ice
and so I've seen some really cool pictures.
I've never really seen it myself
but I've seen some cool pictures
where people will be on the ice, it's clear ice
and they'll actually see a turtle right underneath them
and it's just like in the ice, in the water frozen.
Just, just there.
So these, the turtles will spend winter under the ice
where they can bury themselves in mud
or become semi-active.
They'll lower their body temperature
and they'll slow their metabolism as much as 99%.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yep, because they can't come up for air, right?
They're under the ice, they're in the mud.
They will actually take in oxygen through their skin,
their mouth or their cloaca.
Whoa.
For those of you that don't know what a cloaca is,
it is their butt, so they're breathing through their butt.
That's it.
It's funny too, because we always,
like especially cartoons and everything,
turtles are always smart and all this and did that.
They're a lot smarter than I thought they would.
Exactly.
Why not?
You gotta survive, right?
You do and I don't, that's one of my favorite facts.
That's a good one.
It's so funny and it's just hilarious.
I've done some naturalist programs with kids,
you know, school-aged kids.
And when I ask them, how do you think
a turtle survives in the winter?
They don't know.
And then when you tell them,
Oh, yeah.
That's it's too funny to see the reaction.
That one's staying in the brain.
They'll remember that one.
Yeah, exactly.
We're gonna remember if not all a good majority of this
and this was really informative.
As it always is when you join us,
if people have questions or want to know more,
maybe about some what we talked about,
how can they reach you?
They can reach me.
You can either stop into the extension office
over at the Wood County Courthouse
or you could email me at anna.m.james.
J-A-M-E-S at westwisc.edu.
Just love talking with you.
Thanks so much for the time and all the work you do on this
and for our community and to keep up the great work.
We'll talk again real soon.
Okay, thanks so much James.
Well, have a more midday magazine coming up for you tomorrow
right here on 97-5 FM 13 20 AM WFHR, locally grown radio.