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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
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Mon, 10 Dec 2018 08:25:38 -0500
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Hi all
Hate to be the Doubting Thomas all the time but the presence of insects on mountain peaks is hardly evidence they flew there deliberately.

quoted material follows:

Countless millions of inorganic and organic dust particles, including the spores of fungi, pollen grains of diverse plants, seeds, insects, spiders, etc. are lifted up from the plains by air currents, blown by the upper-air winds, suddenly chilled and finally cast on the snow-fields on high mountains. On the extensive glaciers and snow-fields on high mountains one often comes across large numbers of insects that are really and typically inhabitants of the plains and of lower elevations, valleys, etc. and have been brought here by wind. 

These insects are as a rule found frozen and dead on the ice and snow on the mountains. There are numerous scattered references to such wind-blown organic derelicts on snow-fields on high mountains from different parts of the world. The ecological importance of such wind-blown derelicts at high altitudes on the Alps has been known since 1881 and considerable literature has accumulated in recent years. 

MANI has described the wind-blown derelicts on the snow-fields of the Himalaya as consisting of aphids, jassids, aleurodids, winged ants, gnats, midges, flies, fruitflies, beetles, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, spiders, mites, etc., in addition to bits of leaves and seeds of a great many different kinds of lowland plants. SWAN has recently emphasized the great ecological importance of these wind-blown derelicts on the Himalaya and has indeed separated a distinctive aeolian zone at these extreme high altitudes, characterized by the fact that the food resources are predominantly wind- blown from the lowlands. ERHARD and STAUDER have described the lifting up of millions of butterflies (Pieris) by warm air currents far above the high peaks on the Alps, to be frozen and thrown back on glaciers at night. 

There are records of great swarms of grasshoppers like Melanoplus being carried by air currents from far-off areas in the plains and frozen and preserved in ice on glaciers on high mountains. Myriads of the grasshopper Caloptenus spretus swarm from the Pacific Coast slopes of the western highlands during July - August and in their eastward journey, they are arrested by the high mountains, chilled and cast dead upon snow-fields of the Rocky Mountains in NorthAmerica. 3250 m, etc. 

BOWDITCH has also referred to the common occurrence of numerous wind-blown beetles on Mt. Washington. Recently WILSON has reported on wind-blown organic matter on snow-fields on high mountains in New Zealand as containing even material from sea, found deposited at elevations of 2440 m. In addition to the diverse insects, spiders, etc. from the plains, quantities of insects from the lower valleys are also regularly lifted by strong air currents, to be suddenly chilled and cast ultimately on the high mountain slopes. 

On all mountains, except perhaps those situated in the extreme high latitudes, during the warm months and in bright sunny weather, updraft air currents rise from low hills and from the valleys below in the forenoon, attain their maximum often exceeding an upward velocity of 40 m/sec. in the afternoon and declining about sunset. 

The updraft air currents lift various flying insects, ballooning spiders, etc. from the valleys and carry them up to the mountain summits. The downward night winds that often blow from the mountain summits to the valleys do not, however, bring down the high altitude insects, because none of them are on their wings at night on the mountains. Even in the absence of strong winds, under ordinary atmospheric conditions, a most remarkable variety of particles like pollen grains, spores of fungi, bacteria, small Protozoa, insects, spiders, etc. are carried aloft from the plains. The intensive heating of the ground causes vertical currents, by which even heavier bodies are lifted upward. The air being calm near the ground, such convection currents are surprisingly strong and lift relatively heavy insects that happen to be on the wing to great altitudes, where they are suddenly chilled and killed. 

Unlike those near sea-level, the air currents at high altitudes are stronger and more constant in direction and thus transport the uplifted insects often over long distances, across vast plains. GLICK found, for example, that aphids are frequently carried in this way over 1280 km and the gypsy-moth over 180 km at an altitude of 4267 m. JOHNSON & TAYLOR have recently reported that about 92000 flies of Oscinella frit (LINN.) were air-borne to an elevation of 1500 m in this manner. Even VAN DYKE observed the frozen remains of flies, ants, etc., on the snow-fields of Mt. Rainier and Mt. Lyellin North America.

Mani, M. S. (2013). Ecology and biogeography of high altitude insects (Vol. 4). Springer Science & Business Media.

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