Developing disease control measures to ensure environmental & economic sustainability in a key emerging livestock industry

The mass rearing of insects-as-food is a rapidly-growing multi-billion-euro global industry that supplies protein and animals for human, livestock and pet consumption.

However it is currently threatened by emerging infectious diseases that are poorly understood and for which current disease-control responses are inadequate.

This is a particular problem with mass die-offs in one of the most important reared species: the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) because of viral disease outbreaks caused by Acheta domesticus Densovirus (AdDV).

This project will address key epidemiological questions associated with how AdDV spreads between individuals and within cricket husbandry systems.

In particular: (1) identifying virus transmission pathways between individuals and within husbandry systems, (2) describing individual disease expression & viral shedding patterns which are important for virus testing, (3) evaluating the effectiveness of virucides to sterilise housing and prevent disease transmission, and (4) developing decision-making tools for effective husbandry techniques that minimise disease transmission risk.

This research is critical if the industry is to remain viable and to realise its promise of improved sustainability in food production.

This study is timely and will produce results worth millions per year in improved global insect protein production through reduced premature death & cohort losses.