Black soldier fly as feed for aquatic insects
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Laboratory experiments on predatory aquatic insects have various practical challenges, including high nutritional demands of fresh prey. Ideally, predatory insects are reared with live prey that are easy to cultivate in a laboratory environment, low-cost, rich in nutrients, and easily accessible. Here, we assess whether the black soldier fly (BSF) Hermetia illucens larvae and adults are suitable feed for major aquatic insect groups with distinct trophic niches (Odonata, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, and Megaloptera). We first determined the size overlap between BSF larvae and major aquatic insect groups using existing databases of body size. We then experimentally assessed whether BSF larvae: (1) are consumed by different groups of predators, (2) can survive prolonged periods underwater, and (3) are selected based on body size. We found that the body size of BSF larvae overlaps with most insect groups, with smaller larval instars showing the highest overlap. Our feeding experiment showed that all predatory insect groups consumed BSF larvae and could survive under a strict BSF diet for at least a few weeks. Insect floaters (water striders) and divers (backswimmers and diving beetles) consumed BSF adults regularly. BSF larvae sunk underwater and repeatedly performed undulating movements, making them detectable to predators. BSF larvae can survive underwater for extended periods (1–6 days), with larger instars surviving longer. For sit-and-wait predators such as odonates (dragonflies and damselflies), larvae were more likely to consume smaller BSF larvae. Our observed behavioural and physiological characteristics of the BSF suggest that it is a promising complementary feed for various aquatic insects.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".