Effects of specialized feed on gut microbiome

Abstract

Food supply chain introduces high food wastage and unwanted by-products. Large amount of waste such as plastic and industrial by products such as seeds are being generated. These wastes often end up in water bodies such as rivers, oceans, or landfills to be incinerated which incurs detrimental environmental and economic impacts. These adverse negative impacts introduced from wastes can be mitigated with a more efficient upcycling of wastes with the help of the Tenebrio Molitor (Yellow Mealworm). The Tenebrio Molitor (Yellow Mealworm) have good nutritional content, a broad range of diet and is a promising bio-converter. The gut-inhabiting microorganisms play a significant role to provide essential nutrients to mealworm and is also capable of degrading waste products such as polystyrene (PS) is commonly studied. There are many forms of food waste, and a large contribution of food waste comes from the by-products of oil extraction. Globally, the extraction of sesame oil leads to approximately 1.1 million ton of sesame oil meal (SOM) by-product which are rich in protein but may also contain anti-nutritional factors. In this study , mizuna, butterhead lettuce, and lettuce will first be used to observe how gut microbiota is altered when fed with different feeding substrates. Secondly, the gut microbiota and growth performance of mealworms fed via feeding inoculation with SOM-digestive strain isolated from SOM or mealworm guts will be evaluated. The results of this study suggest that a change in feeding substrate significantly changes mealworm gut microbiota while feeding inoculation method demonstrated potential improvement in mealworm digestibility to waste products.