Optimization of the microbiological and nutritional quality of black soldier fly larvae (Hermetia illucens) towards further valorization opportunities

Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL, Hermetia illucens) are increasingly being produced at industrial scale, mainly as animal feed ingredient. Both the microbiological quality and the nutritional composition of the larvae can likely be enhanced by extensively investigating and manipulating the larval or substrate microbiota. To this end, specific aspects of the insect microbiota will be deepened in this PhD. The first line of research relates to the microbiological quality determined by bacteria and characterization of the active bacterial community, where next-generation sequencing techniques will provide new insights on the absolute abundances of bacterial communities utilising quantitative PCR techniques, the active (i.e. living) species within the microbiome will be analysed and where cultural-indepent techniques for analysing the BSFL microbiota will be compared and improved. In the second research line this PHD will expand our knowledge on the uncharted domain of the fungal communities of the BSFL, where both DNA- and RNA-based deep amplicon sequencing as well as shotgun metagenomics sequencing will be applied to characterize the mycobiota, in relation to a range of rearing substrates. Finally, the third research line relates to the nutritional quality of the larvae as fish feed ingredient. Here, the aim is to increase the market value of the BSFL by rearing BSFL on substrates fermented with ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids producing fungi.