ARS | Publication request: Strategies for Improving Artificial Diets with Insect-Derived Components

Submitted to: Arthropod Mass Rearing and Quality Control Workshop
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: November 4, 2003
Publication Date: N/A

Technical Abstract: The improvement of artificial diets for many beneficial insects with the addition of insect components is well documented in the literature. Our strategy for diet improvement is based on the premise that yet undiscovered factors are present in insect tissues that could be used to supplement artificial diets and thus promote better growth and development of immature stages and increased of fecundity of female entomophages. Research on the identification of factors, however, is very limited. Specific factors were first reported for certain parasitoids but are incompletely characterized. Insect cell lines that were found to display in vivo properties through production of specific products were found to substitute for tissues (e.g. fat body) in promoting development of parasitoids grown in tissue culture. Only in recent studies have factors been implicated in predators. Our studies have indicated the existence of factor(s) in prey tissues, yet to be defined, that promote the fecundity of a predator, Orius insidiosus (Say) upon addition to a basal insect-free artificial diet. Research is needed on both parasitoids and predators to provide supplements that may be used to improve suboptimal diets and to better understand the physiological and biochemical roles of such agents.