Nielsen Frederik Kjær, Hansen Rasmus Juhl, Muurmann Asmus Toftkær, Bahrndorff Simon, Eriksen Niels Thomas
Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7H, DK-9220 Aalborg, Denmark.
Animals (Basel). 2025 Jan 16;15(2):233. doi: 10.3390/ani15020233.
Mealworms and black soldier fly (BSF) larvae are two of the most reared insects at an industrial scale. Both may feed on by-products from agricultural and food industries. Feed efficiency is one of the most important aspects of such processes and varies between species and feed substrates and depends on the metabolic performance of the larvae. Compared to each other, both species may hold advantageous capabilities affecting their feed efficiency, likely depending on the feed substrate. We reared mealworms and BSF larvae on a diverse selection of by-products from agricultural and food industries, quantified major metabolic rates across their life spans, and compared their performances. The type of feed substrates had stronger effects on the growth of mealworms than on black soldier fly larvae. Generally, BSF larvae were advantageous in terms of the highest maximal specific growth rate (0.50-0.77 day) and feed assimilation rate (0.81-1.16 day) and shortest development period (23-25 days) but disadvantageous in terms of metabolic maintenance cost (0.07-0.21 day). In mealworms, the maximal specific growth rates were 0.02-0.11 day, the highest feed assimilation rates were 0.16-0.37 day, and the development period was at least 65-93 days, while maintenance was only 0.02-0.05 day. In contrast to the BSF larvae, the specific maintenance rate was weight dependent in the mealworms and lowest in the largest individuals. The combined outcome of these metabolic rates resulted in an average carbon net growth efficiency, NGE* of 0.16-0.40 in mealworms and 0.33-0.56 in BSF larvae across their life span. It thus seems that BSF larvae are more versatile and somewhat more efficient at converting diverse feed substrates into growth than mealworms. Differences in NGE* affected the substrate conversion efficiencies (i.e., the ratio of the weight gain of the larvae to the reduced weight of feed substrates) and may thus impact the overall outcome of insect farming.
黄粉虫和黑水虻幼虫是两种在工业规模上养殖最多的昆虫。它们都可以以农业和食品工业的副产品为食。饲料效率是此类养殖过程中最重要的方面之一，并且因物种和饲料底物而异，还取决于幼虫的代谢性能。相互比较而言，这两个物种可能具有影响其饲料效率的优势能力，这可能取决于饲料底物。我们用来自农业和食品工业的各种副产品饲养黄粉虫和黑水虻幼虫，量化它们整个生命周期的主要代谢率，并比较它们的性能。饲料底物的类型对黄粉虫生长的影响比对黑水虻幼虫的影响更大。一般来说，黑水虻幼虫在最高最大比生长率（0.50 - 0.77天）、饲料同化率（0.81 - 1.16天）和最短发育期（23 - 25天）方面具有优势，但在代谢维持成本（0.07 - 0.21天）方面处于劣势。在黄粉虫中，最大比生长率为0.02 - 0.11天，最高饲料同化率为0.16 - 0.37天，发育期至少为65 - 93天，而维持成本仅为0.02 - 0.05天。与黑水虻幼虫不同，黄粉虫的比维持率与体重有关，在最大的个体中最低。这些代谢率的综合结果导致黄粉虫在其整个生命周期中的平均碳净生长效率（NGE*）为0.16 - 0.40，黑水虻幼虫为0.33 - 0.56。因此，黑水虻幼虫似乎比黄粉虫更具通用性，并且在将各种饲料底物转化为生长方面效率更高。NGE*的差异影响了底物转化效率（即幼虫体重增加与饲料底物减轻重量的比率），因此可能会影响昆虫养殖的总体结果。
