Abstract
Larvae of Hermetia illucens, also commonly known as black soldier fly (BSF) have gained significant importance in the feed industry, primarily used as feed for aquaculture and other livestock farming. Mathematical models such as the Von Bertalanffy growth model and dynamic energy budget models are available for modelling the growth of various organisms but have their demerits for their application to the growth and development of BSF. Also, such dynamic models were not yet applied to the growth of the BSF larvae despite models proven to be useful for automation of industrial production process (e.g. feeding, heating/cooling, ventilation, harvesting, etc.). This work primarily focuses on developing a model based on the principles of the afore mentioned models from literature that can provide accurate mathematical description of the dry mass changes throughout the life cycle and the transition of development phases of the larvae. To further improve the accuracy of these models, various factors affecting the growth and development such as temperature, feed quality, feeding rate, moisture content in feed, and airflow rate are developed and integrated into the dynamic growth model. An extensive set of data was aggregated from various literature and used for the model development, parameter estimation and validation. Models describing the environmental factors were individually validated based on the data sets collected. In addition, the dynamic growth model was also validated for dry mass evolution and development stage transition of larvae reared on different substrate feeding rates. The developed models with the estimated parameters performed well, highlighting their potential application in decision-support systems and automation for large scale production.
Highlights
Commonly known as the black soldier fly (BSF), is an insect species which is widely studied for the high nutrition value of its larvae
The main aim of this work is to develop suitable mathematical models that adequately describe the effect of environmental conditions on the larval metabolism; the larval growth describing the evolution of its dry mass over time; and the transition of development stages between larvae and pupae
Models were developed based on literature and based on the analysis of data to accurately and plausibly describe the influence of different environmental conditions such as temperature, feed density, feed moisture, and airflow rate on growth and development rates of BSF larvae
Summary
Commonly known as the black soldier fly (BSF), is an insect species which is widely studied for the high nutrition value of its larvae. Studies [1,2,3,4], showcase these nutritional values and its suitability as a source for animal feed and human food. Several studies, [5] and [6,7,8,9] amongst the recent, indicate their application for recycling food and bio waste. These studies clearly demonstrate the potential of Hermetia illucens in addressing the approaching food scarcity while reducing the resource usage for their production. Irrespective of the potential applications of Hermetia illucens, for their (mass)
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