Larvae of Hermetia illucens feed on different types of decomposing organic matter and their development depends on the quality and quantity of food ingested. In this study the effect of three artificial diets was analyzed, namely hen feed, meat meal and a mixture of these two diets. The effects of diet on ovarian development, size, mortality, duration of the larval and pupal stages and sex ratio were studied. Results indicate that the meat meal diet was the worst of the three diets in terms of percentage mortality and duration of the larval and pupal stages. We conclude that food ingested by the black soldier fly larvae determines both the physiological and morphological development of the adults.

Pollinators play a crucial role in ecosystems globally, ensuring the seed production of most flowering plants. They are threatened by global changes and knowledge of their distribution at the national and continental levels is needed to implement efficient conservation actions, but this knowledge is still fragmented and/or difficult to access. As a step forward, we provide an updated list of around 3000 European bee and hoverfly species, reflecting their current distributional status at the national level (in the form of present, absent, regionally extinct, possibly extinct or non‐native). This work was attainable by incorporating both published and unpublished data, as well as knowledge from a large set of taxonomists and ecologists in both groups. After providing the first National species lists for bees and hoverflies for many countries, we examine the current distributional patterns of these species and designate the countries with highest levels of species richness. We also show that many species are recorded in a single European country, highlighting the importance of articulating European and national conservation strategies. Finally, we discuss how the data provided here can be combined with future trait and Red List data to implement research that will further advance pollinator conservation.

The large volume of organic wastes and by-products produced every year usually generates environmental problems, such as water, air and soil contamination and it can be also a focus for pathogen dispersion. Sustainable waste management strategies should be developed, that can favour the value of the organic waste instead of its disposal. A sustainable strategy would be the use of the organic waste as substrate for intensive production of insect biomass. The insects associated with manure and organic waste can play a key role for the sustainable valorisation of organic waste streams as high add value products as they could be used as feed. This review is an overview of the research related with intensive insect farming of saprophagous dipteran species (flies) on manure and other organic wastes and the by-products obtained after the process. Using dipterans as recyclers of waste means that the mass-production systems of these organisms have to be efficient and competitive with other recycling systems. This review describes the possibilities of the dipterans to become active agents in waste management systems and, at the same time, an important resource of protein for feed and the main aspects and bottlenecks that have to be improved in order to achieve competitive insect farming.