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My doctoral project focuses on how the host-microbiota's interactions shape the ontogeny and performance of black soldier fly (BSF, Hermetia illucens) larvae. The BSF is an insect of great interest in waste management and entomophagy because the saprophagus larvae revalorises organic waste by bioconversion into biological fertilizer and high-quality animal proteins (for food and feed).

The microbiota is well known to influence it's host metabolic activity, immune response, behavior, physiology, resistances, and reproduction. This project aims to identify how biotic factors (host-microbiota and microbiota inter-species interactions) shape ontology and zootechnic performance of the black soldier fly in the optic of industrial rearing optimization. We investigate how these factors impact the genomic expression profile of the host through metatranscriptomic differential expression analysis of axenic and conventional larvae and functional pathway enrichment analysis. This project will also characterize microbial communities' assembly and networks of interactions, associated with different developmental stages of the BSF by a metataxonomic approach. The end goal is to design a microbial consortium to test in-vivo the effect of potential probiotics on BSF rearing.