Transforming garbage into gold: development of experimental tools to study nutritional dynamics of black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illuscens Linnaeus 1758).

越来越多的证据表明，昆虫有能力将相对低价值的废物转化为有价值的动物饲料成分。这个概念很简单：昆虫幼虫不是将有机废物回收到堆肥或甲烷中，而是消耗有机废物，并将有机废物转化(或向上循环)为营养饲料成分。专门作为家畜/鱼饲料饲养的昆虫的培养已经评估了几十年。昆虫幼虫通常含有丰富的蛋白质，根据物种的不同，它们可能是脂类的重要来源，这使它们成为废物生物转化的极佳候选者。然而，这种方法的广泛采用和/或商业化一直有限，这主要是由于手工努力，往往是在一体化或协调发展有限的发展中国家。然而，目前，各种因素的汇聚重新引起了人们对这一领域的兴趣，其中包括世界各地的一些大型商业企业。许多城市限制将有机废物处置到垃圾填埋场的新规定，以及为动物饲料寻找可持续成分的需要，重新引发了重新评估昆虫将废物有机物质转化为宝贵饲料资源的机会的兴趣。幼虫饲料特性(如营养成分、化学成分)对幼虫后续饲喂价值的影响为动物饲料行业提供了开发创新产品的机会。*几十年来，动物营养研究因开发和实施工具和标准化实验方法而受益良多，这些工具和标准化实验方法需要系统地开展营养需求研究，评估饲料成分作为潜在的饲料纳入对象，开发适当的饲料配方以优化动物生产。对可靠工具和方法的需要导致了一些实验方法的发展，以了解营养物质被吸收的程度，直接或间接测量营养物质的表观消化率以及衡量动物性能的性能指数。然而，与其他动物营养领域不同的是，目前还没有研究昆虫幼虫营养动态的工具和标准化方法。对昆虫幼虫的平行概念的应用将极大地促进与不同物种和生命阶段的营养动态有关的基础和应用研究。

A growing body of evidence has demonstrated the ability of insects to transform relatively low-value waste streams into valuable animal feed ingredients. The concept is simple: rather than recycling organic wastes into compost or methane, insect larvae consume organic waste and convert (or upcycle') organic waste into nutritious feed ingredients. The culture of insects raised specifically as feed for domestic animals/fish, has been evaluated for several decades. Insect larvae are typically rich in protein and can be an important source of lipids, depending on the species, rendering them excellent candidates for the bioconversion of waste materials. However, the widespread adoption and/or commercialization of such approaches has been limited, largely due to artisanal efforts, often in developing nations, with limited integration or coordinated development. Currently however, a convergence of factors has renewed interest in this area, including a number of large-scale commercial ventures around the world. A combination of new regulations in many municipalities restricting the disposal of organic wastes to landfills, together with the need to find sustainable ingredients for animal feeds has brought a renewed interest to re-evaluate the opportunities for insects to convert waste organics into valuable feed resources. The impact of larval feedstock characteristics (e.g. nutrient profile, chemical composition) to affect the subsequent feeding value of the larvae provides the opportunity to develop innovative products for the animal feed industry.***For many decades, animal nutrition research has benefited greatly by the development and implementation of tools and standardized experimental approaches, which are required to systematically carry out nutrient requirement research, evaluate feed ingredients as potential candidates for dietary inclusion, develop adequate feed formulations to optimise animal production. The need for reliable tools and methodologies has led to the development of a number of experimental approaches to understand the degree by which nutrients are absorbed, either direct or indirect measurement of apparent nutrient digestibility as well as performance indices to gage animal performance. However, unlike other areas of animal nutrition, there exists no tools and standardized approaches to study nutritional dynamics of insect larvae. The application of parallel concepts for insect larvae will greatly advance fundamental and applied studies relating to nutritional dynamics across different species and life stages.