Table 3.

Adult mortality (%) (after 1-week), number of alive larvae, total larval dry weight (mg), mean individual larval dry weight, total dry feed consumed (mg), and efficiency of ingested food conversion (ECI, %) of Tenebrio molitor larvae fed on different cereal flours for 10 weeks.

Diet components	Adult mortality (%)	Number of alive larvae	Total larval dry weight (mg)	Individual larval dry weight (mg)	Total dry feed consumed (mg)	ECI (%)
Barley meal	3.3 ± 2.1 ab	52.0 ± 7.2 b	170.6 ± 39.5 abc	3.3 ± 0.4 ab	2,064.7 ± 251.1 abc	8.0 ± 1.0 bc
Corn flour	6.7 ± 3.3 ab	120.7 ± 19.9 ab	67.8 ± 7.6 cd	0.6 ± 0.1 ef	1,376.4 ± 223.7 cd	5.2 ± 0.4 bcd
Durum wheat flour	6.7 ± 3.3 ab	123.0 ± 20.6 ab	517.2 ± 116.0 a	4.3 ± 0.9 a	3,313.3 ± 890.6 abc	16.9 ± 1.4 a
Millet flour	1.7 ± 1.7 b	49.5 ± 13.1 b	15.3 ± 3.9 e	0.3 ± 0.1 f	878.6 ± 208.8 d	1.8 ± 0.3 e
Oat flour	16.7 ± 4.9 a	153.5 ± 5.4 a	104.2 ± 7.7 bcd	0.7 ± 0.1 ef	1,881.2 ± 144.1 abc	5.6 ± 0.2 bcd
Rice flour	1.7 ± 1.7 b	51.5 ± 6.4 b	50.3 ± 16.1 de	1.0 ± 0.3 def	1,519.1 ± 137.5 bcd	3.1 ± 0.7 de
Rye flour	6.7 ± 3.3 ab	149.3 ± 13.4 a	148.1 ± 18.2 abc	1.0 ± 0.1 cde	2,986.7 ± 212.6 ab	4.9 ± 0.4 bcd
White flour	3.3 ± 2.1 ab	107.5 ± 37.1 ab	251.6 ± 112.5 abc	2.1 ± 0.5 bc	3,508.1 ± 726.5 a	5.6 ± 1.7 cd
Whole meal flour	0.0 ± 0.0 b	56.2 ± 19.9 b	99.6 ± 34.4 cd	1.8 ± 0.2 bcd	1,891.4 ± 318.7 abcd	4.6 ± 0.9 cd
Zea flour	8.3 ± 4.8 ab	121.3 ± 18.9 ab	293.1 ± 42.3 ab	2.5 ± 0.1 b	3,118.2 ± 300.9 ab	9.2 ± 0.6 ab
F	2.4	5.7	14.9	22.9	7.2	18.5
P	0.023	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001	< 0.001

In all cases, values represent means ± SEM (n = 6).

Within each column, means followed by the same lowercase letter are not significantly different (in all cases df = 9, 59; Tukey–Kramer HSD test at P = 0.05).