Abstract: Globally, the expansion of livestock and fisheries production is severely constrained due to the increasing costs and ecological footprint of feed constituents. The utilization of black soldier fly (BSF) as an alternative protein ingredient to fishmeal and soybean in animal feed has been widely documented. The black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) used are known to voraciously feed and grow in contaminated organic wastes. Thus, several concerns about their safety for inclusion into anima...
Abstract: Chalcidoidea are mostly parasitoid wasps that include as many as 500 000 estimated species. Capturing phylogenetic signal from such a massive radiation can be daunting. Chalcidoidea is an excellent example of a hyperdiverse group that has remained recalcitrant to phylogenetic resolution. We combined 1007 exons obtained with Anchored Hybrid Enrichment with 1048 ultra-conserved elements (UCEs) for 433 taxa including all extant families, >95% of all subfamilies, and 356 genera chosen ...
Abstract: A bee’s ability to return home, its homing ability, can be used as a proxy for the maximum foraging distance of that species. Body size is hypothesized to affect foraging distance with larger bees having larger foraging ranges. In this study, we estimated the maximum foraging distance of six different afrotropical stingless bee species (Meliponula bocandei, Meliponula ferruginea, Meliponula togoensis, Meliponula beccarii, Plebeina armata and Hypotrigona gribodoi.) in two differen...
Abstract: The small hive beetle Aethina tumida Murray, is an African native that has become an invasive pest of honeybees in North America. The beetle is capable of rapid population growth on pollen,honey, and bee brood. It is also capable of feeding and reproducing on various kinds of fruit, but its ability to sustain population growth on diets other than bee products has remained unknown. We examined this question by observing A. tumida on 2 diets: pollen dough (inoculated with a species o...
Abstract Houseflies are pest in homes, dairies, barns, poultry houses, recreation areas and food processing sites. The study is to evaluate the susceptibility of Musca domestica to deltamethrin, cypermethrin and DDVP insecticides. Topical bioassay was used to perform adulticidal test, while dipping method was used for larva and pupa, different concentrations were used which ranges from 0.5ml/L-10.0 ml/L for larvae and pupae while 5.0 µL/fly-50.0 µL/fly was used for adult Musca domestica. Th...