Nutrition in Insects

The main reason any animal eats is to acquire the nutrients (including water) that are essential for meeting energetic needs associated with general maintenance and fueling growth and reproduction. In this regard, insects do not differ from other animals. What sets insects apart, however, is that they are able to get their nutrients from a wide range of different food sources that, for various reasons, are unavailable to most other animals. For example, termites and many beetles feed on wood, while cockroaches and crickets feed on dead plant material (detritus). A large number of insects have sucking mouthparts that allow them to feed on plant phloem (e.g., aphids) and plant xylem (e.g., spittlebugs and cicadas), or in the case of the sucking lice and some flies (e.g., mosquitoes) vertebrate blood. Some ants and beetles even get their nutrients from fungus gardens that they themselves actively maintain. From a nutrient standpoint, these foods are all very different from one another,...