Few studies to date have investigated factors, other than mast crop size, that influence the dynamics of Curculio populations.W e examined the effects of varying levels of soil moisture (0.35, 0.4 and 0.5 g water/g soil) and temperature (8, 14 and 20 C) on over wintering survival of Curculio larvae collected from Quercus michauxii acorns. Survival of larvae, analyzed using log-linear analysis, was adversely affected by soil moisture but not by soil temperature. Larvae that overwinter in drier soil may have higher probabilities of successfully metamorphosing.