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Conceptual model of factors responsible for the phenotypic traits of an insect bioconverter. An insect individual's phenotype is a product of its genetics in response to environmental conditions. Change in either the genetics of the organism (genotype) or the environmental conditions the
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As the human population continues to grow, so too do the concerns regarding the sustainability of waste management from our food production systems. Faced with limited environmental resources for food production, issues related to food loss and waste are critical in mitigating challenges stemming from projected population growth and long-term food...
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... genetic models treat an organism's phenotype (P) as the product of its genetics and the environment (G × E) (Fig. 4), and genotype-by-environment interactions are well studied in insects Moczek 2010;Gobbi et al. 2013). Likewise, the quantifying genotype by environment are of great interest to insect breeders, because unlike traits emerging from genetic evolution, trait variation due to phenotypic plasticity is not heritable, though it maximizes ...
Similar publications
Food waste is currently used for the production of biogas. However, a reusage of waste is preferred to follow the principles of the circular economy and consider the waste management hierarchy, which can be achieved by rearing black soldier fly (BSF) larvae on such organic waste. Nonetheless, the presence of (micro)plastics and related additive pla...
The black soldier fly (BSF), Hermetia illucens, has emerged as a promising species for waste bioconversion and source of antimicrobial proteins (AMPs). However, there is a scarcity of research on the element transformation efficiency and molecular characterization of AMPs derived from waste management. Here, food waste treatment was performed using...
Sustainable food waste management remains a major concern in urban areas. We investigated the potentials of the black soldier fly (BSF) and house fly (HF) to recycle fruit waste into larval biomass which can be used as a highly rich protein source in broilers diet. Fruit waste was collected from a local market in Dschang, Cameroon, and subjected to...
In recent years, the larval stage of Hermetia illucens, commonly known as the black soldier fly (BSFL), has been used to promote the circularity of the agri-food sector by bioconverting organic waste into larval biomass which has been used as a livestock feed. A secondary byproduct of this process is frass that can be used as an organic fertilizer....
Food waste is a growing concern in developing countries. This study aims to implement food waste bioconversion by utilizing black solider fly larvae for two eateries' food waste. The bioconversion process used 0.5 g of black solider fly eggs for 14 days in the six bio ponds. After 14 days, the waste, larvae, and compost are separated using sieves t...
Citations
... In lectures, it is also discussed how insects may be used as bio-converters [70]. That is, agricultural waste streams, such as pomace from fruit processing, hulls from almonds and pistachios, and skins and seeds from tomato processing, can potentially be fed to insects. ...
... Compared to traditional livestock animals, production of insects is associated with a number of important advantages: they have an impressive bioconversion rate (gain in body weight per weight of food consumed). As an example, if 100 kg of restaurant food waste was fed to black soldier fly larvae, chickens, or a cow, the food waste would yield 58 kg of black soldier fly larvae, 25 kg of chicken, or 2.9 kg of beef [70]. Insects require orders of magnitude less water, entire bodies can be processed and consumed (no non-edible bones), and effective production is possible at much smaller scales and with minimal upfront investment costs. ...
... Insects require orders of magnitude less water, entire bodies can be processed and consumed (no non-edible bones), and effective production is possible at much smaller scales and with minimal upfront investment costs. Insect biomass is harvested, processed, stored, and distributed before being used as precursors for the production of jet fuel, pharmaceuticals, nutritional additive, pet food, fish meal or other high-value products [70]. And in the very near future, insect biomass will likely also become integrated into human diets on a much larger and broader scale. ...
In schools and universities, we instructors carry the responsibility of informing and inspiring students. Traditional and more theoretical educational programs (here referred to as passive learning) may be tied to projects and activities (active learning), in which students gain hands-on practical experience with planning, development, implementation, maintenance, and presentation of different solution-focused activities. Complementary to passive learning, the needs for active learning activities and living laboratories have become more pertinent as global trends, such as climate change, weigh heavily on the shoulders of young people. Unless properly guided and given tangible sources of inspiration, the sense of being overwhelmed and incapable of effectively contributing to a more sustainable future may cast a dark shadow over students, their ability to engage in active learning, and their long-term career aspirations. Schools and universities are being evaluated for their “greenness”. Accordingly, operational improvements (carbon, water, waste, and nutrient footprints) to meet sustainability targets are being implemented. Structural sustainability improvements represent unique opportunities for students and instructors to engage in active learning. As a broader message to school and university administrators, it is argued that efforts to plan and implement sustainability initiatives should also involve transformations of educational curricula. It is argued that educational institutions could and should be more than sums of buildings and infra-structure and represent living laboratories. Descriptions of topics taught, learning outcomes, and links to examples of student assignments of a specific course, Urban Food and Society, are included and discussed in the broader contexts of urban food sustainability and active learning. The main purpose of this article is to promote the notion that active learning activities and the need for improved sustainability of schools and universities can go hand in hand and provide compelling educational opportunities.
... Improved productivity, nutritional composition and resistance to pathogens are the candidate traits currently identified as favourable to improve the economics and efficacy of insect rearing in commercial settings (Jensen et al., 2017;Fowles and Nansen, 2019;Hoc et al., 2019;Morales-Ramos et al., 2019;Eriksson and Picard, 2021;Facchini et al., 2022). Several breeding programs have already started and succeeded in selecting for increased larval body size (Morales-Ramos et al., 2019;Facchini et al., 2022), although with associated effects on other traits (Facchini et al., 2022) that may be detrimental such as lower larval survival (Morales-Ramos et al., 2019). ...
Fats make up a large fraction of the larval biomass in insects and are of increasing relevance for industrial purposes. The quantity of fats accumulated during the larval period can vary greatly among individuals. To selectively breed favourable fat accumulation phenotypes for commercial purpose, a genetic component underlying these differences would be required. In this study we determined the heritability of larval fat accumulation in the common housefly ( Musca domestica L.). A nested paternal half-sib breeding design resulted in a total of 47 full-sib families, which produced in total 633 larvae, each phenotyped for their dry weight and fat content (absolute and relative). Adult selection was strictly standardized to reduce the variation in fat content induced by differences in development time during the immature stages: sires and dams were separated according to their pupation day and emergence day, and subsequently pooled into randomized groups. Two animal models were built to estimate the heritability of larval fat accumulation: (1) a Markov Chain Monte Carlo linear mixed model (MCMCglmm) where three sets of priors were used, and (2) one based on linear mixed model using restricted maximum likelihood (ASReml). The results showed a moderate heritability for larval absolute fat content for both MCMCglmm (between 0.30 and 0.38, depending on the set of prior used) and ASReml (0.37 ± 0.11). Slightly higher estimates were obtained for the relative fat content with both the MCMCglmm (between 0.34-0.48) and ASReml (0.47 ± 0.10). In contrast, heritability estimates for larval dry weight were low and could be obtained only with the MCMCglmm model (between 0.11-0.22). This work provides valuable insights into the quantitative genetics of larval fat characteristics, a trait of high relevance for the emerging sector producing insects for feed and food.
... Post-ingestion midgut responses and gut microbial communities likely play significant roles on bioconversion efficiency and larval growth. 40,41 The BSF industry has often faced the difficulty of selecting an effective rearing substrate that is environmentally sustainable as well as economically viable. 17 Considering diverse food waste streams, 3 breeding different lineages of BSF as sustainable bio-converters for specialized waste streams could be an effective strategy. ...
BACKGROUND
The black soldier fly (BSF) offers a potential solution to address shortages of feed and food sources; however, selecting effective rearing substrates remains a major hurdle in BSF farming. In an urban area like Singapore, current practice is based on rearing BSF on homogeneous waste streams (e.g., spent brewery grains or okara) because heterogeneous food wastes (e.g., mixed kitchen/canteen waste or surplus cooked food) present several operational challenges with respect to the standardization of development, nutritional content, and harvesting.
RESULTS
In this study, we compared two genetic strains of BSF larvae (wild‐type and laboratory‐adapted line) in a bioconversion experiment with diverse types of food waste (homogeneous/heterogeneous; plant/meat) and we quantified the phenotypic plasticity. Our results demonstrate different plasticity in bioconversion performance, larval growth and larval nutrition between the two BSF lines. This difference may be attributed to the selective breeding the laboratory‐adapted line has experienced. Notably, larval lipid content displayed little to no genetic variation for plasticity compared with larval protein and carbohydrate content. Despite variation in larval development, heterogeneous food wastes can produce better performance in bioconversion, larval growth, and larval nutrient content than homogeneous food waste. All‐meat diets result in high larvae mortality but larval survival could be rescued by mixing meat with plant‐based food wastes.
CONCLUSION
Overall, we suggest using mixed meals for BSF larvae feeding. Targeted breeding may be a promising strategy for the BSF industry but it is important to consider the selection effects on plasticity in larval nutrition carefully. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.
... Not only this, but the impacts of food production contribute to soil erosion and excessive freshwater use [82,83]. However, since 30 to 50% of produced food ends as waste [74,75,84], new food production methods to meet current and future food demands are essential to ensure food security and reduce destructive pressures on the natural environment [85][86][87]. ...
... Crop residues and domestic food waste can be retained using recycling, acting as animal feed [81,85,87,88], and therefore utilise the wastes occurring alongside the food system. Organisms such as insects can consume and decompose the waste [86,87,89,90] and, in return, are a protein source that can be used to feed livestock without requiring high technical knowledge nor space [86,87,[90][91][92]. ...
... Crop residues and domestic food waste can be retained using recycling, acting as animal feed [81,85,87,88], and therefore utilise the wastes occurring alongside the food system. Organisms such as insects can consume and decompose the waste [86,87,89,90] and, in return, are a protein source that can be used to feed livestock without requiring high technical knowledge nor space [86,87,[90][91][92]. This, in turn, correlates with the EU's CE framework's production and consumption pillar that aims at reducing waste production across the production and consumption of goods. ...
The traditional linear economy increasingly threatens natural systems, leading to the unprecedented degradation of global biodiversity. This endangers the functioning of economies and threatens the welfare of human societies. The circular economy (CE) offers an opportunity to decouple virgin resource consumption from economic growth, avoiding resource overexploitation and waste generation, consequently preventing biodiversity degradation. In this context, industrial symbiosis (IS) creates an approach for facilitating the repurposing of waste materials and by-products as input materials, promoting the cross-sectoral exchange of resources and further enhancing sustainable development. Here, we compile existing CE indicators and examine whether they are related to biodiversity. We then synthesise knowledge from previous academic studies to develop cases focusing on key human needs (food, water, energy, infrastructure). Using these cases, we demonstrate a potential relationship between biodiversity and the CE from an IS perspective, highlighting how circular practices impact the direct drivers of biodiversity loss. We conclude that quantifying the consequences on biodiversity of adapting CE approaches remains limited yet offers an opportunity to protect biodiversity. Finally, we argue that further research on the biodiversity impact of circular practices across all pillars of the CE and all actors guiding a shift in economic paradigms is required to promote the systemic consideration of resources and materials and direct an economic transition. This can potentially help towards halting biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution—also known as the triple planetary crisis.
... Insect meals can be included in aquafeeds as valuable sources of high-quality protein, thereby reducing the reliance on ingredients, such as fish meal, derived from overexploited natural resources. Insect larvae have high nutritional value (Poshadri et al., 2018;Rumpold and Schlüter, 2014), they can be produced in a short time due to their short life cycle (Hua et al., 2019) and they can bioconvert and biotransform organic matter (Fowles and Nansen, 2019;Gasco et al., 2020) with low feed conversion ratio (Oonincx et al., 2015). Therefore, insect larvae production could be performed efficiently next to agri-food manufacturing facilities, by converting side-streams into products of high nutritional value (Smetana et al., 2019) which contribute to limiting environmental degradation (Van Huis, 2013) in the frame of circular economy (Madau et al., 2020). ...
Alternative and sustainable fish diets are required by modern aquaculture. We investigated the possibility of using insect (Tenebrio molitor TM, Hermetia illucens HI or Musca domestica MD) larvae meals (as 19.5% of the feed formulation) to replace 30% of the in the fish meal (FM) in a gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) feed formulated to contain 65% FM. The feeds were isonitrogenous (ca 57% crude protein of dry matter) isolipidic (ca 17% lipid dry matter) and isoenergetic (ca 22 MJ kg⁻¹ dry matter). To achieve similar energy content among the experimental diets, the fish oil inclusion was adjusted. Fish (average initial weight of 29.5 g) were fed up to apparent satiation three times a day, 7 days per week in a 93-days trial. Each diet was assigned to three 500 L tanks with fish density 2 kg m⁻³. Five fish from the initial population and two fish per tank were taken for whole-body composition analysis. At the end of the experimental period, nine fish per treatment were taken for the analysis of plasma metabolites and liver enzyme activities. Growth performance, feed intake, feed conversion and somatic indices of fish fed the different insect meal diets were similar to the FM fish. However, among the insect meal fish groups, the feeding with the TM diet resulted in higher specific growth rate compared to the HI diet (1.57% and 1.51% per day, respectively). The whole-body proximate composition was similar among experimental groups. Fish fed HI had the lowest fat retention (57.0% compared to 69.3–74.2%). Additionally, the HI group had also lower dry matter and energy retention (30.5% and 36.6%, respectively) compared to the FM group (33.8% and 41.5%, respectively). The whole-body saturated and mono-unsaturated fatty acids content was similar to all the experimental groups. Fish fed diets higher in fish oil (FM and HI) had higher eicosapentaenoic, docosahexaenoic and total ω-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acids content. Whole-body amino acid composition was similar among all experimental groups, while the amino acid retention exhibited significant differences. The plasma metabolites and enzyme activities as well as the hepatic lipogenic enzyme activity were not affected by the different diets. Fish fed the HI diet exhibited higher liver alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity in comparison to the TM group. Overall, this study shows that FM can be successfully replaced by TM, HI or MD meals in 30% by weight in the diets of gilthead sea bream. Comparing insect meals, HI meal was inferior in terms of growth performance and dry matter-fat retention compared to TM and MD, respectively.
... Urban agriculture may be another solution; however, in this case, additional studies are needed for a more complete assessment [45]. Farming fish is another possibility to achieve more sustainable food security [46], as are the home food gardens [47], revitalising local food systems [48], using insects as bioconverters of organic waste [49], obtaining protein from food waste [50], food forestry [51], natural food [52], better governance and conception [53], hydroponic farm [54], organic farming [55], crops resilience assessments [56], wild edible greens [57], food loss, and waste management [58]. ...
The unadjusted intake of food constitutes a real challenge for the several sustainability dimensions. In this perspective, the main objectives of this research are to characterise the current contexts of food security, its relationship with sustainability, and identify proposals and actions that may support the design of more adjusted policies in the future. In addition, it is intended to assess if the food security pillars properly address the sustainability goals and if the evolution of undernutrition is accompanied by sustainable frameworks. In this way, statistical information from the FAOSTAT database was considered for the several dimensions of food security over the period 2000–2020. These data were analysed through factor-cluster approaches and panel data methodologies, namely those related to quantile regressions. As main insights, we may refer that undernutrition is more impacted by the availability of food and nutrients and political stability than by the level of GDP—Gross Domestic Product (except for the extreme cases). This means that the level of development is not the primary explanation for the problems of nutrition. The main focus of the national and international policies must be to improve the agrifood supply chains and to support political stability, in order to mitigate undernutrition worldwide and ensure a global access to sustainable and healthy diets. In addition, it is suggested to rethink the four pillars of food security (availability, access, utilisation and stability), in order to encompass other dimensions, such as climate change.
... (Schiff et al. 1988). Self-selection can also occur according to the stage of the insect (Deans et al. 2017, Fowles andNansen 2019). In this study, we observed that T. molitor larvae sought to consume the ideal proportion of the mixture of the control diet with the poultry litter for their nutritional balance. ...
In order to investigate a low-cost and sustainable food source, the present study evaluated the use of poultry litter for rearing Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus, 1758 (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae). The experiment was performed with five diets containing increasing levels of poultry litter (0, 25, 50, 75, and 100%) replacing the control diet and five replicates with 50 larvae per sample unit. Larval growth and development were evaluated and the chemical compositions of diet and T. molitor larvae were determined. Larval development and reproduction efficiency of T. molitor were similar in all treatments. The sole use of poultry litter to feed T. molitor reduced the crude protein of flour by only 8%. Including 50% or more poultry litter in the standard diet is the best-suited formulation for larvae production and incorporation of minerals in the larvae. Mealworm can be grown successfully on diets composed by poultry litter, the diet did not affect survival, growth, and development; however, studies spanning several insect generations should be performed to determine the effects of diet composition on adult fecundity. The knowledge acquired using poultry litter to feed T. molitor will be useful to carry out new research, in addition to evidencing the possibility of low-cost mass rearing of these larvae.
The ever-growing human population has forced people to intensify agriculture to meet the demand for food and feed. However, the increase in global agricultural production also means an increase in waste generation, which is mostly improperly managed, especially in low- and middle-income countries where adequate waste management infrastructure is limited and inefficient. Consequently, organic waste has become a global burden due to its negative impact on the environment and human health. In this sense, insect-based bioconversion could be an economically viable, environmentally friendly, and technically feasible approach to organic waste management. Based on this review, organic wastes from agriculture, food industry, household, municipalities, and starch industry are considered as suitable substrates for bioconverter insects. Commonly used insects for bioconversion include the cricket, yellow mealworm, superworm, black soldier fly, house fly, flesh fly and blow fly. Rearing facilities must be adapted to provide the optimal environmental conditions for the growth and development of the reared insect to maximize the bioconversion rate and efficiency. Bioconverter insects and their by-products can be industrially processed into animal feed, fertilizer and biodiesel or extracted to isolate bioactive compounds. The challenges associated with insect-based bioconversion include human and social acceptance, method-, infrastructure- and technology-related problems, the availability of substrates, and political and legal regulations. In summary, insect-based bioconversion of organic waste has the potential to reduce waste, create jobs, provide novel products, and offer a sustainable source of protein to feed the world's growing population.
Resumen: La generación de basura en Panamá, incluidos los desechos orgánicos, representa un grave impacto sobre la sanidad pública, sin dejar de lado las considerables afectaciones medioambientales. Esta problemática requiere la realización de ingentes esfuerzos para contrarrestar los efectos nocivos causados. Actualmente. Se llevan a cabo diferentes alternativas convencionales para la reducción y eliminación de los diferentes materiales contaminantes, especialmente sobre la utilización de desperdicios orgánicos. El objetivo de este artículo fue identificar las principales especies de insectos con potencial para ser utilizados en el reciclaje de residuos orgánicos en Panamá. Se realizó una compilación de documentación dentro de los motores de búsquedas asociados a la temática en documentación publicada de 1992 a 2023 en idioma español e inglés. A partir de dicha información se estableció un listado de las 20 principales especies de insectos que pueden contribuir al reciclaje de basura orgánica a nivel mundial. De estos insectos, existen dos especies que tienen mayor potencial de ser multiplicadas en Panamá que incluyen la mosca soldado negra (Hermetia illucens L. [Diptera: Stratiomyidae]) y el gusano de la harina (Tenebrio molitor L. [Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae]). La utilización de estos insectos puede contribuir a nivel nacional en el procesamiento y respectivo reciclaje de basura orgánica proveniente de restaurantes, residencias, mercados públicos y de cosechas con el fin de transformarlas en fertilizante orgánico y proteína para consumo humano o animal.
Palabras clave: basura orgánica, fertilizante orgánico, insectos, proteína, reciclaje.
