Evaluation of selective breeding programme designs for black soldier fly larvae body weight

This talk will present our work on evaluating different designs of a selective breeding programme for black soldier fly larvae body weight using stochastic simulations. The black soldier fly is a vigorous insect with high fecundity and fast growth with important group dynamics. The large number of offspring, the short generation interval, and the substantial genetic diversity indicate a great potential for selective breeding of the black soldier fly. While genomic resources and population genetics research of BSF is progressing, research on selective breeding is still in early stages. Here we used stochastic simulation built with AlphaSimR to simulate ancestral history of black soldier fly, domestication and early breeding, followed by a set of possible scenarios. In the scenarios, we have varied phenotyping and selection intensity, the availability of sex information, and crossing method, and different statistical approaches to analyse the available data. The results show that expectedly phenotyping and selection intensity increase genetic gains. However, due to sexual dimorphism in body weight of larvae, care must be taken in increasing selection intensity to prevent selecting exclusively female larvae. In terms of the availability of sex information and crossing method, there was not much difference in short-term genetic gain, which were impressive, but availability of sex information and control of crossing enabled better management of genetic diversity and hence larger long-term genetic gains. Different methods to analyse the available data give different accuracies of selection, but the differences are less important than the design of a breeding programme. In summary, selective breeding in black soldier fly is expected to generate large short-term genetic gains, which can continue for many generations, particularly with continued investment in data and information to support optimal breeding decisions.