Modifying the Rearing Environment to Maximize Juvenile Cricket Survival

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Entomo Farms produces one of the planet's most sustainable super-foods: cricket protein. Entomo Farms wants**to increase production, and seeks ways to optimize rearing techniques to maximize cricket survival. Their**current data suggests that the survival rate from newly hatched to adult harvest is only ~20%, with the biggest**concern occurring at 1-3 weeks (nursery stage), where ~50% of the crickets die. Dr. Bertram and her team will**assist Entomo Farms by experimentally quantifying the best way to modify the physical arrangement of the**rearing environment to minimize nursery die-offs. The Bertram Lab will determine how access to life's**essentials (food, water, shelter) can be enhanced to increase survival. Cricket behaviour and locomotion may**limit access to food in Entomo Farm's current rearing environment, so Bertram Lab will use a multifactorial**design to ascertain how feed tray spacing and cover influences cricket survival (Project 1). Entomo Farm's**current rearing environment also provides crickets with access to water using damp peat moss. The Bertram**Lab will ascertain whether incorporating water dispensers to the best designs from Project 1 enhances survival**(Project 2). Rearing crickets in high densities inevitably results in fights and cannibalism. The Bertram Lab will**therefore quantify how modifying shelter configurations can reduce fighting and cannibalism and, as a result,**increase cricket survival (Project 3). Dr. Bertram and her team will then take the novel rearing designs with the**highest survival rates (outcomes of Projects 1-3) to Entomo Farms to run experiments in situ (Project 4).**Together the proposed experiments will determine how refinements to the physical arrangement of the rearing**infrastructure can improve nursery cricket survival outcomes. As a result, the project will deliver**evidence-based best practices for increasing production. Entomo Farms are rapidly expanding to meet the**growing demands for alternative protein products. Given this, Entomo Farms have an imminent need to**develop technical advances to infrastructure to dramatically increase their productivity. Canada stands to gain**by supporting an emerging global leader in important alternative protein production.