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ViewAttendees 2

Student 10-Minute Paper

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Student Competition

Student

Grad Competition P-IE: Behavior and IPM

Oviposition site dynamics and cohort demography impact reproductive success in the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens

Monday, November 6, 2023
10:54 AM – 11:06 AM ET
Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Maryland 5-6
In-Person Student Competition
Aging can have negative impacts on fertile egg production and is a growing area of interest for those mass-rearing the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens). This greenhouse experiment examined the interaction of age-related effects with the industrial practice known as 'continual release'. In continual release, flies are introduced into a mating-cage before old flies are culled, creating a heterogenous population of mixed-age and mating-status, as well as exposing these flies to the volatiles associated with an oviposition substrate during different times of their physiological development. Mating success was construed as a composite between mating frequency, oviposition frequency, egg weight, and hatch percentage. Results: Young-homogenous cohorts perform better than older, mixed-cohorts by nearly every metric. Undoubtedly, the best combination of treatments utilized a homogenous cohort of young flies that could initially mate unexposed to oviposition substrate, before the substrate was made available to females. This practice netted a greater-than 2-fold increase in mating, egg weight, and hatch percentage compared to the treatment which simulated continual release. Interestingly, despite these increases, total oviposition events interacted negatively with age and timing of substrate provisioning, suggesting that egg-laying behavior is erratic in old flies and is best optimized in young flies when the substrate is delayed. Therefore, producers should consider rearing and cage-designs that both encourage mating between young, homogenous populations, as well as the timing of facility-specific practices that intersect with BSF reproductive developmental physiology and welfare. However, an assessment is still needed to determine where economic trade-offs occur when implementing cultural design-practices.