Hello,

I have a project with H. illucens (Black soldier fly) larvae and I am trying to analyse some parameters about their development cycle.

I want to assess something like the reproduction rate. The problem is that I am lacking a lot of data.

So basically I have an initial weight of eggs (let's say 50mg each replication) and then I have final weight of eggs after one generation (let's say 3200mg average).

So, I can divide 3200/50 and get to the conclusion that 1mg of eggs can produce 64mg of eggs after 55 days (which includes survival rates, fecundity rates etc. but without analysing it).

So I cannot express it by real reproduction rate (rate of live and fertile females per female), but I can assess (with a lot in the black box I know) the multipying factor for eggs weight (I don't know how many larvae / flies will come out from these eggs though).

How can I call this, and is it scientifically valid to use that kind of data?

Thanks a lot !

Sarah