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Insects as human food
Augustinová, Šárka ; Frouz, Jan (advisor) ; Pivnička, Karel (referee)
Insects as a traditional source of food widespread in tropical and subtropical regions offer significant nutritional, economical and ecological gains not only to rural communities. Western bias against insects led to gradual reduction of usage of insects as food without any compensation for lost sources of nutrition and other benefits. Current efforts of the Western world to prevent starvation of population and undo the consequences of inconsiderate human interventions into the environment are often futile and ineffective. One of possible answers to these global problems could be reestablishment of insects as a food source for the native population. Insects offer a renewable source of protein with nutritional values as high as 3186kJ per 100g of solids which exceeds the values of most species traditionally cultivated. The protein content varies throughout the various insect species from 30% in wood-worms to 81% in wasps of the genus Polybia. Moreover, the quality of these proteins is very high and the high values of the amino acids contained outperform the FAO recommended designs. Many species contain important minerals such as calcium, sulfur, iron, phosphor, magnesium and zinc and are as well rich in B vitamins, niacin, riboflavin and thiamin, which are often not incorporated enough into standard meal...
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Importance of Insects to Humans and their Use in School Education
Farionová, Jana ; Hanel, Lubomír (advisor) ; Říhová, Dagmar (referee)
The thesis describes insects (class insecta) as an important group of organisms living in almost all ecosystems. It investigates the importance of insects for humans not only from a human point of view. First part focuses on the positive impact of insects for humans and their use in many areas of human life, such as agriculture, insect products, forensic entomology, medicine and others. The following part focuses on insect pests, parasites and synanthropic species a human being can encounter during one's life. Next parts describe the possibilities of including insects in lessons at schools; a content analysis of textbooks for elementary schools and high schools from the viewpoint of benefits of insects for humans; and a questionnaire survey of popularity of insects, their breeding and entomophagy focused on pupils of elementary schools. KEYWORDS insects, importance of insects, useful insects, insect pests, insect parasites, types of insects, textbook
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Mortality of small animals on singletrails in Marianské údolí valley (Brno, Czech Republic)
Homolka, Miloslav ; Mikulka, O. ; Kamler, J. ; Drimaj, J. ; Plhal, R.
Singletrail areas became a part of tourist business all over the world. Cycling routes usually go through the natural environment, they are used especially in the summer and therefore are quite evident that small animals are killed on them. The submitted contribution indicates what effects have the traffic on the singletrail on small animals in the deciduous forest environment (Brno, Czech Republic). During singletrail traffic insects and small vertebrates were killed. The number of cadavers of individual species was relatively small on the trails (3800 individuals of insect and 51 of vertebrates one during 3 months on the 11 km of the route) and traffic most probably does not endanger the existence of any animal species at the local population level. Mostly the common species were perished on the trails, but individuals of specially protected and endangered species were also killed there (Calosoma sycophanta, Bombus spp., Anguis fragilis, Bufo bufo) so this fact should not be overlooked and underestimated. For ethical and educational reasons, the construction of new singletrail areas should be preceded by careful research of particular area in order to map the distribution of small animals and choose the route with regard to minimizing mortality, especially endangered species of fauna.
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Methodological problems of the analyses of insect decline
Chlup, Petr ; Storch, David (advisor) ; Sedláček, Ondřej (referee)
In recent years, several studies reporting a severe decline of insect populations across several continents turned the spotlight on the problem of insect decline. However, the reported declining parameters may vary, and it is necessary to differentiate between declines in biomass, abundance, diversity, or geographical range reduction. This thesis aims to summarize how the conclusions about insect decline are shaped by the methods researchers use, especially by the variables they measure, emphasizing the potential methodological issues and limitations of the various facets of insect decline. Furthermore, we offer a brief digest of the most relevant potential biases and interpretative risks threatening population monitoring surveys. The review also provides concise insight into the state of knowledge on the matter of insect population trends. Keywords: insects, insect decline, insect population trends, methodology, methodological issues
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Reactions of spider and insect predators to aposematic prey
Koláčná, Klára ; Exnerová, Alice (advisor) ; Sentenská, Lenka (referee)
Aposematic prey advertises its unprofitability to predators by means of warning signals, which can be visual, chemical, acoustic or combined with each other as multimodal signals. Most experimental studies dealing with responses of predators to aposematic prey focus on vertebrates, especially birds. This thesis focuses on the most frequently tested groups of terrestrial arthropod predators - spiders, dragonflies, and mantises - supplemented by less tested insect predators. Most of the tested arthropod predators are able to learn to avoid noxious aposematic prey based on either visual, olfactory or acoustic signals depending on their perception. Some can remember this aversion for several days. Only in case of jumping spiders, ability to generalise previous experience with a particular prey to similar prey has been confirmed. Prey chemical defenses most often consist of cardenolides or aldehydes, which proved to be aversive for tested arthropod predators.
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Evolutionary history, systematics and biogeography of Southern Hemisphere hydrophilid beetles (Coleoptera)
Seidel, Matthias ; Fikáček, Martin (advisor) ; Gomez-Zurita, Jesus (referee) ; Gimmel, Matthew L. (referee)
The research presented in my PhD thesis consists of phylogenetic, biogeographic, taxonomic and ecological research of Southern Hemisphere water scavenger beetles (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae) with a special emphasis on New Zealand. The introductory chapter provides a brief outline on the break-up of Gondwana and geological processes that shaped New Zealand and its fauna. Furthermore, the diversity of New Zealand Hydrophilidae and worldwide diversity of the hydrophilid subfamily Cylominae and its taxonomic history are illustrated. The scientific part of the thesis contains 4 published papers and 2 manuscripts. The first study recalibrates the Coleoptera time tree, providing new age estimates for the Hydrophiloidea, among others. The new age estimate is implemented in the second study, a phylogenetic study that reconstructs the biogeography of the 'Gondwanan' Cylominae beetles. The Cylominae, whose name was reinstated through nomenclatural priority over Rygmodinae in a separate paper, are found to consist of two tribes, Andotypini and Cylomini. The disjunct distribution of Cylominae is shown to be partly the result of vicariance and partly of long-distance oversea dispersal. The most remarkable long-distance dispersal is that of the only African representative of the subfamily which reached Africa from...
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Methods in research of insects mobility
Jor, Tomáš ; Hadrava, Jiří (advisor) ; Lučan, Radek (referee)
Mobility is one of the basics characteristics of the insects populations. This bachelor thesis presents a compendium of methods used in research of insects mobility. In the first part are described methods of marking individuals utilized for Mark-Recapture studies aiming to study insects movements. First are presented the indirect methods of individuals tracking, further the methods of direct tracking of insects using a radio-telemetry are described. In the second part the thesis focused on modeling of insects mobility using dispersion functions with connection to metapopulation dynamics and a dispersion itself. Difusion model based methods and simpler estimates of movemensts are also presented in this part. Key words: Insects, Mobility, Mark-Recapture, Modeling
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Stable isotopes and the study of insects ecology
Javůrková, Jaroslava ; Šípek, Petr (advisor) ; Harant, Karel (referee)
Animal foraging ecology is an important part in the puzzle ecosystem relationships. This bachelor thesis presents review in the field of food ecology, especially insects. It focuses on the method of analysis of stable isotopes, which is one of the current and in recent decades a modern approach for studying this issue. Stable isotope analysis is compared with other frequently used methods for animal food ecology. The aim of this work is to introduce this method and its possible use in the study of insect food ecology. The first part provides the necessary theoretical background, practical application in laboratory and then it deals with the problems typically adressed by this method. Key words: stable isotopes, stable isotopes analysis, food ecology, food preferences, insects
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