Fig 1.
Mean ± standard error (n = 3) of individual wet body weight (mg) of black soldier fly larvae over time reared on six different rearing substrates: Chicken feed (CF), mixed feed (MF), brewer’s spent grain (BG), mitigation mussels (MM), rapeseed cake (RC), and shrimp waste (SW).
Dissimilar lower case superscript letters represent significant differences (p < 0.05) between means within the same time point.
Fig 2.
Mean ± standard error (n = 3) of specific growth rate (SGR, %/day) of black soldier fly larvae during the 7-day trial on six different rearing substrates: Chicken feed (CF), mixed feed (MF), brewer’s spent grain (BG), mitigation mussels (MM), rapeseed cake (RC), and shrimp waste (SW).
Dissimilar lower case superscript letters represent significant differences (p < 0.05) between means. SGR (%/day) = (ln (final body weight (g))—ln (initial body weight (g)))/time of trial (d) * 100.
Table 1.
Proximate composition of initial (5-days old) and final (12-days old) black soldier fly larvae reared on six different substrates (chicken feed (CF), mixed feed (MF), brewer’s spent grain (BG), mitigation mussels (MM), rapeseed cake (RC), and shrimp waste (SW)).
All values are shown as mean ± standard error (SE; n = 3) for percentage of wet weight (%WW), percentage of dry matter (%DM), or kJ/g dry matter (DM). Corrected crude protein is calculated using the nitrogen-to-protein conversion factors described in Table 4. Dissimilar lower case superscript letters represent significant differences between means within the same column (p < 0.05).
Table 2.
Proximate composition of rearing substrates at the start (initial, t = 0 days) and the end of the trial (final, t = 7 days).
All values are shown as mean ± standard error (SE; n = 3) for the percentage of wet weight (%WW) or dry matter (%DM). Dissimilar lower case superscript letters represent significant differences between means within the same column (p < 0.05) whereas asterisks indicate a significant difference between initial and final substrate composition for the indicated parameter.
Table 3.
Mean ± standard error (n = 3) temperature (°C) and pH of rearing substrates during the trial.
Dissimilar lower case superscript letters represent significant differences between means within the same column and dissimilar capital letters represent significant differences between means within the same row of either temperature or pH.
Table 4.
Amino acid composition of black soldier fly larvae at the start (5-days old larvae) and the end (12-days old larvae) of the trial after feeding different rearing substrates for 7 days and the amino acid composition of initial substrates.
All values are shown as mean ± standard error (SE; n = 3) in percentage of dry matter (%DM), n.d. = not detected. Dissimilar lower case superscript letters represent significant differences between means within the same row for larvae data and capital superscript letters represent significant differences between means within the same row for initial substrate data (p < 0.05).
Table 5.
Fatty acid composition of black soldier fly larvae at the start (5-days old larvae) and the end (12-days old larvae) of the trial after feeding different rearing substrates for 7 days, as well as of the initial substrates.
All values are expressed relative to the total identified fatty acids and shown as mean ± standard error (SE; n = 3), n.d. = not detected. Dissimilar lower case superscript letters represent significant differences between means within the same row for larvae data and capital superscript letters represent significant differences between means within the same row for initial substrate data (p < 0.05).