Resources
PR and Educational Material
PR and Educational Material
Insect-IMP logo:
How to acknowledge the Action? Please, use the following sentence and our logo found on the link above.
We acknowledge the funding from the COST Action 22140 Insect-IMP: Improved Knowledge Transfer for Sustainable Insect Breeding.
Need a sentence to describe the Action?
The Insect-IMP network aims to support insect genetic improvement to enhance food security and sustainability while reducing environmental impact.
Press Release list:
Explore our latest press releases and educational resources. Stay informed with updates and enhance your knowledge with our curated materials.
- 🇷🇴 PR_Romanian
- 🇹🇷 PR_Turkish
- 🇱🇹 PR_Lithuanian
- 🇵🇹 PR_Portuguese
- 🇸🇮 PR_Slovene
- 🇮🇱 PR_Hebrew
- 🇬🇧 PR_English
Power point Presentations
Communication kit
Infographics
We created these infographics to help you better understand key aspects of insect breeding, genetic improvement, and their benefits for sustainability. Explore our visual guides and gain insights into this growing field.
- Bugs with Benefits
- Animal Breeding Made Easy_An Approach to Insect Genetic Improvement
- Insect Breeding_Identifying & Overcoming Challenges
Training school material
Discover our comprehensive training resources tailored to meet your educational needs.
The material from the training school on mating control (Ljubljana, May 2025)
The course consisted of three parts:
1) Honeybee mating control and demonstration of artificial insemination, material available here
2) Insect anatomy and gender identification, material available here
3) Lady bug anatomy and dissection, material available here
The material from the training school on quantitative genetics (Athens, January 2025)
This course introduces the main quantitative genetics concepts used in selective breeding.
The course consisted of four parts:
1) Genetic relatedness and inbreeding
2) Sources of variation, heritability, and repeatability
3) Correlation and regression
4) Selection and estimation of breeding values, and selection index
The material is available here.
The material from the training school on population simulation (Athens, January 2025)
This course demonstrates how to simulate populations and breeding programmes with the software AlphSimR (Gaynor et al., 2021).
The course consists of four parts:
1) Introduction to the course, AlphaSimR, and simulations
2) Simulate DNA and phenotypes (traits)
3) Selection simulation and response to selection
4) Simulating a breeding programme
Due to the size of material only, the material is available in Part1 (Lecture 1&2) and Part2 (Lecture 3&4).
The material from the training school on communication and dissemination (Athens, January 2025)
The course on dissemination offered insight into communication and dissemination principles and tools best suited for EU funded projects or social media. The material is available here.
Project publications
Delve into our project publications to uncover insights, research findings, and outcomes. Explore our collection of reports, articles, and papers to stay updated on our latest endeavors and achievements.
Financing Rules & Guidelines
Below, you will find essential guidelines on who is eligible for reimbursement and how to claim your expenses after attending a COST event. To ensure a smooth reimbursement process, participants must meet certain conditions and follow the steps outlined below.
Eligibility Criteria & Claim Process
To be eligible for reimbursement, participants must:
- Have an e-COST profile with correctly entered bank details.
- Receive an official e-COST invitation confirming eligibility for reimbursement.
- Accept the invitation within 2 weeks of receiving it.
- Sign the attendance list on each day of the event.
- Submit a reimbursement claim within 15 calendar days after the meeting ends.
- Upload all required supporting documents in clear and legible condition.
By following these steps, you ensure that your claim is processed efficiently. Below, you will find more details on eligible and non-eligible expenses.
- COST-094-21-V2.0-Annotated-Rules-for-COST-Actions-Level-C
- Daily-allowance-table
- TRAVEL REIMBURSEMENT RULES – COST 22140
- Quick-Guide-for-Travel-Reimbursement-Claims.pdf
Meeting and workshop reports
Insect-IMP meetings are where ideas for insect breeding are debated, tested and taken further. Here you can find the reports, presentations and outcomes from our workshops and conferences – from defining breeding objectives and phenotypes to genotype-by-environment interactions and research published beyond English.
Jump to a meeting:
- Novi Sad, Serbia – May 2026: G × E × C in insect breeding
- İzmir, Türkiye – April 2026: Insect science beyond English
- Athens, Greece – January 2025: EAAP insect genetics workshop
- Celle, Germany – May 2024: Breeding objectives, phenotyping and breeding values
Novi Sad, Serbia – May 2026: Genotype x environment (x community) interactions in insect breeding
Dates: 19–21 May 2026 · Format: WG3 workshop and Management Committee meeting
Insect-IMP members met in Novi Sad for a three-day workshop on genotype-by-environment (G × E) (x community) interactions in insect breeding. Invited speakers from insect, plant and animal breeding explored how G × E (x C) affects phenotyping, mating control and genetic evaluation, but also how it could and should be incorporated into insect mass production / rearing / breeding.
See the meeting report (PDF) →
Key takeaways
- G × E is poorly understood in the insect-rearing community, and terms are often used inconsistently. A shared vocabulary is needed.
- There is more hidden genetic variation than we know of – in black soldier fly and other farmed insects – while natural populations remain little studied.
- We do not truly understand what is a standard environment and which environmental variables influence production. A good start would to be define a standardised diets, which offer a common reference for comparing strains under comparable conditions.
- Generalists vs. specialists, breeders need to define their breeding goal and decide whether they want to breed for insects that perform well across a range of environment or that do superb in a single well-defined environment
Programme
Click a title to open the presentation (PDF).
General examples of G × E in insects (chair: Gertje Petersen)
- Tom Generalovic – Variability in the black soldier fly
- Maria Boukouvala – Unveiling the Khapra beetle Trogoderma granarium: biology, behaviour and management of a global quarantine pest
- Kemal Karabag – CRISPR-based gene silencing for Varroa resistance in honey bees and its implications for host–parasite G × E interactions
Microbiome and feeding (chair: Roel Meyermans)
- Veysel Bay – Pathogen-driven microbiome modulation: the impact of Theileria infection on vector microbial communities
- Lotte Froninckx – Repeated feeding trials with black soldier fly lines on varied diets: setup and data processing challenges
- Freek IJdema – The persistent influence of host lineage on the gut microbiomes of black soldier fly and yellow mealworm
- Marco Tejeda – The role of standardised diet in the control for G × E interactions of BSF
Excursion
A visit to the Insect Pilot Farm offered a practical look at production conditions.
Overcoming G × E in phenotype definition and measurement (chair: Mert Kükrer)
- Seth Murray – Phenomics as a novel way of overcoming / capturing G × E effects
- Frank Ssemakula – Spectroscopic and hyperspectral-imaging based phenotyping approaches for nutritional composition in live BSF larvae
- Daniel Tolhurst – Leveraging genotype by environment interaction for improving selection and crossing decisions in plant and animal breeding
Modelling G × E in genetic evaluation (chairs: Jana Obsteter, Gertje Petersen)
- Kishor Bommalingegowda – Genetic parameters and genotype-by-diet interactions for growth traits in Australian black soldier fly larvae: implications for selective breeding
İzmir, Türkiye – April 2026: Insect science beyond English
Dates: April 2026 · Format: joint WG7/WG8 workshop
Scientific knowledge published in languages other than English is easily overlooked in international research. In İzmir, participants worked in language groups to identify national databases, develop native-language search terms and screen the literature on four species – Bombyx mori, Dactylopius coccus, Hermetia illucens and Tenebrio molitor – across 15 languages. The results showed that non-English insect science is not simply a smaller version of the English literature: much valuable work sits in MSc and PhD theses, older sericulture research and regional journals.
The search terms, databases, results and a collection of 229 publications now form the Insect-IMP Cross-Language Knowledge Hub.
Explore the Cross-Language Knowledge Hub →
Athens, Greece – January 2025: EAAP insect genetics workshop
Dates: January 2025 · Format: scientific workshop organised by the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP)
EAAP organised its first-ever insect genetics workshop in Athens. The scientific programme was put together by members of the Insect-IMP COST Action and followed the topics of its working groups – from genetic diversity and domestication to mating control and breeding programme design. Click a title to open the presentation (PDF).
Plenary
- Pablo Librado – Ancient DNA, museomics and insect domestication
- Yaakov Baruch – How genomics revolutionized crop and animal genetic breeding
- Clint Rhode – Population and functional genomics of black soldier fly mass rearing
- Grum Gebreyesus – Innovative phenotyping systems to advance selective breeding in black soldier fly
Session 1: Genetic diversity, population structure and inbreeding management
- Hector Rosche-Flores – A preliminary draft pangenome of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens): structural and genetic insights from diverse populations
- Ben Gradus – Diverse genomic signatures of Hermetia illucens: tools for comprehensive analysis of diversity
- Peter Kimani Muchina – Building a reference imputation panel and optimizing imputation strategies for low-pass sequencing
- Markus Neuditschko – If one is not enough – using whole-genome sequencing data from pooled workers to explore the admixture pattern of honey bee populations
- Christoph Sandrock – The bug and the bridgehead: global colonisation patterns of the black soldier fly inferred from metapopulation genetic structure
- Mert Kükrer – Geography and climate shape genetic diversity in black soldier fly populations across native and introduced ranges
- Ana Samardžić – AI and molecular taxonomy: a comprehensive approach to aquatic macroinvertebrate identification and genetic diversity in the Balkans
- Luca Fontanesi – Population genomics from a food matrix: estimating csd variability using next generation sequencing on Apis mellifera DNA present in honey
- Lucas Rocha Ferreira – Evidence of recent genome domestication in Tenebrio molitor using population and quantitative genomics
- Christos Athanassiou – Exploring the fitness traits of cross-breeding in Tenebrio molitor: insights from laboratory and large-scale trials
- Roel Meyermans – Can we use crossbreeding in black soldier fly to improve production?
- Momir Futo – Genomic phylostratigraphy reveals a wealth of Hermetia illucens species-specific genes of unknown function
Session 2: Interplay of genetics, environment and community
- Nir Bonda – Using artificial selection tools to increase neonates’ survival rate in black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) after suspension
- Kriti Shrestha – Correlated response to selection for increased body weight on fecundity in Hermetia illucens
- Inbar Nevo-Yassaf – A novel PCR-based method for early sex identification in black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae
- Leonard Opare – High larval density and exposure to entomopathogenic fungi adversely affect key life history traits and lead to increased immune investment in the black soldier fly
- Antonios Tsagkarakis – Silkworms as an alternative insect protein source: nutritional value and environmental sustainability
- Georgia Baliota – Comparative larval growth of Alphitobius diaperinus populations on various substrates
- Christina Adamaki-Sotiraki – Do strains affect insect farming efficiency? The effect of Tenebrio molitor strains on adult fecundity and larval growth
- Christoph Sandrock – Pervasive plasticity: genotype-by-environment interactions for larval performance and body composition traits in the black soldier fly
- Irene de Carlos – Modeling the impact of non-native honey bee importation on native Apis mellifera mellifera populations
- Valeria Taurisano – How genetic integrity in honey bees, addressed in a regional law, can be monitored using mitochondrial DNA
- Joana Oliveira – A glow in the waste: advancing food safety with transgenic fluorescent black soldier fly larvae
- Ana Maria Silva Campos – Optimizing COI barcoding for molecular detection of hidden insect infestations in rice grains: evaluating primer efficiency and detection limits
Session 3: Mating behaviour and mating control
- Sreten Andonov – How many samples are sufficient for testing the reliability of mating stations in honey bees (A. mellifera)?
- Jana Obsteter – Optimizing pedigree reconstruction and patriline determination in honeybees
- Armel Donkpegan – Mating behaviour checking in the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens L.) using SNP data: parentage assignment for pedigree reconstruction
- Olga Ameixa – Mating behaviour and mating control (in farmed insects): what can we learn from biological control?
- Rebecca Boulton – Can cryptic sex enhance the performance of an asexual aphid parasitoid?
- Panagiota Soulioti – Unlocking the potential of Zophobas morio: nutritional and reproductive insights
- Andrea Resconi – Is age just a number? Investigating the effects of male and female age on the reproduction of Tenebrio molitor L.
- Yuliia Riabtseva – Impact of adult body size on reproductive performance in Hermetia illucens (Diptera: Stratiomyidae)
Session 4: Components of breeding programme design in farmed insects
- Ana Samardžić – Characterization of gut microbiota in Chironomus riparius under natural and laboratory conditions
- Wael Yakti – Dietary protein source and level influence the free amino acid composition of black soldier fly larvae (BSFL)
- István Fodor – High-throughput phenotyping of black soldier flies – a survey of challenges and needs in the industry
- Gertje Petersen – Automated recording approaches reveal novel traits in the honeybee (Apis mellifera)
- Arnon Tabic – A case study of selective breeding in the biological control industry – improving mass rearing of a predatory mite: phenotyping, selecting and identifying molecular markers
- Susanne Knoll – The adaptive design of breeding objectives of black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens): an example from one of the earliest European farms and processors
- Musa Abdulraheem Arome – Framework and design of the FBN breeding program for enhanced efficiency in black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens)
- Laura Skrubbeltrang Hansen – Strong potential for selection for larger larval size in the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens)
Celle, Germany – May 2024: Breeding objectives, phenotyping and breeding values
Dates: May 2024 · Format: joint workshop of WG4 (breeding objectives), WG5 (phenotyping) and WG6 (breeding value estimation)
Insect-IMP’s first working group meeting brought together three working groups to lay the foundations for insect breeding programmes: what to breed for, how to measure it, and how to estimate breeding values.
WG4 – Breeding objectives
The WG4 workshop aimed to build a common network of breeding objectives (NEBO) based on the expertise of all participants. The outputs are a workshop report (PDF) and the NEBO diagram below.
Network of breeding objectives (NEBO) developed at the WG4 workshop. Click to enlarge.
WG5 – Phenotyping
The WG5 workshop focused on preparing an overview of the phenotypes collected in different insect species and the standard operating procedures used to measure them.
- Esther Ellen – Overview of phenotypes and standard operating procedures
- Idan Alyagor – Black soldier fly phenotyping
WG6 – Breeding value estimation
The WG6 workshop explored what is specific to, and what is shared across, breeding value estimation in different insects. The outputs are a workshop report (PDF) and the following presentations:
- Laura Hansen – Breeding value estimation in the house fly
- Andreas Hoppe – Honeybee specificities in breeding value estimation
- Sreten Andonov – BLUP in honeybees
- Richard Bernstein – The new concept – genomic selection in honeybees
Cross-language knowledge hub
