Programme – Insect Genetic IMProvement, IMPlementation, IMPact

Wednesday 29th January 2025

8:30 – 12:30 – Training 1 – Crash Course Quantitative genetics
Room: Conference Centre

Trainer:

14:00 – 18:00 – Session 1 Genetic diversity, population structure and inbreeding management
Room: Conference Centre

Chairs:

14:00 – 18:00 – Session 2 – Interplay of genetics, environment and community (and the role in genetic improvement)
Room: Auditorium 2^nd floor

Chairs:

Thursday 30th January 2025

8:30 – 11:30 – Plenary session
Room: Conference Centre

Invited speakers:

Ancient DNA, museomics and insect domestication

How Genomics Revolutionized Crop and Animal Genetic Breeding

Population and Functional Genomics of Black Soldier Fly Mass Rearing

Aquaculture Breeding development and what we can learn for insect breeding

11:45 – 12:30 – Posters tours

14:00 – 18:00 – Training 2 – Population simulations Training
Room: Auditorium 2^nd floor

Trainer:

14:00 – 18:00 – Training 3 – Dissemination
Room: Auditorium 1^st Floor

Trainers:

Friday 31st January 2025

8:30 – 11:15 – Session 4 – Mating behavior and mating control (in farmed insects)
Room: Conference Centre

Chairs:

8:30 – 11:15 – Session 5 – Components of Breeding Program Design in Farmed Insects
Room: Auditorium 2^nd floor

Chairs:

11:30 – 12:30 – Mini plenary
Room: Conference Centre

Invited speaker:

Phenotyping through automated image analysis

Joint workshop wrap-up

Ewa Sell-Kubiak

Assistant Professor at Poznan University of Life Sciences.
She is an academic lecturer and scientist specializing in animal breeding and statistical genomics mainly in pigs, but also other species. Her research focuses on the genetic background of variability of reproduction traits in pigs, simulations of breeding objectives, GWAS and (genomic) breeding value estimation. She is involved in two EU Horizon projects: mEATquality (WP1 leader) and Re-Livestock (WP3 scientist), and two COST Actions as a Management Committee member from Poland: EU-LI-PHE and Insect-IMP.
She is Vice-president in the Animal Genetics Commission at EAAP and President of the Permanent Committee of World Congress of Genetics Applied to Livestock Production.

Christoph Sandrock

Senior scientist at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL)
He has a background in evolutionary ecology and presently focusses on investigating the population genetic structure and phylogeography of insects farmed for food and feed. His research aims at understanding demographic patterns and genetic consequences of domestication in this novel livestock, and exploring genotype-by-environment interactions for various traits across different wild and captive origins as well as diverse production contexts to support selective breeding. He is Secretary of the Study Commission Insects of the European Federation of Animal Science and leads one of the working groups of the COST Action Insect-IMP.

Jana Obšteter

Research Associate at the Agricultural Institute of Slovenia
Her background is quantitative genetics with her MSc focusing on human genetics and her PhD focusing on implementing genomic selection in small dairy populations. Her research focuses on designing breeding programmes and developing tools to improve population management, with special interest in honeybees and large livestock. Additional research interests include managing populations’ genetic diversity and inferring demographic histories with the aim to support systematic breeding. She is the vice-president of the EAAP Young Club and the vice-chair of the COST Action Insect-IMP.

Gertje Petersen

Heads the LAVES Institute for Apiculture in Celle, Germany.
An animal breeder by heart and a veterinarian and geneticist by training, Dr. Petersen grew up on a sheep and beef farm in Northern Germany and studied veterinary medicine at the Freie Universität Berlin with the goal of becoming a livestock veterinarian. Looking for experience in pasture-based production, she moved to New Zealand in 2013, where she instantly became involved in working with large-scale commercial beekeeping operations. Dr. Petersen pursued a PhD in Animal Breeding and Genetics at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, in cooperation with Ag-Tech leaders AbacusBio Ltd on the topic of “The role of molecular genetic variation and population structure in the genetic improvement of the honeybee, Apis mellifera”. After working with commercial beekeeping operations across the globe for 10 years on topics of honeybee genetic improvement, business formation and systems improvement, she returned to Germany to take on the role of Director of the State Institute for Apiculture in Lower Saxony.
Georgia is also the National Coordinator for Farm Animal Genetic Resources, and the Cyprus representative in the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP) and the European Regional Focal Point for Animal Genetic Resources (ERFP). She also currently serves as an elected member of the ERFP Steering Committee (2023-2027), an EAAP Auditor (2022-2025), and was elected President of the EAAP Sheep and Goat Commission (2023-2026. In the past, she has served as a member of the EAAP Research Council (2015-2019), representing Cyprus, Tunisia, Lebanon and Israel, and as a member of the EAAP Ways and Means Committee (2016-2019).

Clint Rhode

Associate Professor of Genetics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
He has a primary disciplinary specialisation in population- and quantitative genetics, and a special research interest in how micro-evolutionary processes influence genome-wide patterns of genetic diversity and how this in turn facilitates phenotypic development and variation. His work has applications in animal production, conservation management, and evolutionary biology. He is South Africa’s leading aquaculture geneticists working on various indigenous marine species of economic importance and has recently taken an interest in the genetics and genomics of insect mass rearing, specifically of the black soldier fly. Furthermore, he is registered with the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions as a professional scientist; he holds granted membership to the Golden Key International Honour Society; is a member of the International Animal Genetics Society; and currently serves as the President of the South African Genetics Society; as an Executive Member of the International Genetics Federation, on the Scientific Committee of the Southern African Aquaculture Association, and on the Editorial Board of the international scientific journal Royal Society Open Science.

Pierrick Haffray

R&D manager in selective breeding programms in aquaculture in SYSAAF

Thirty four years of experience in domestication and selective breeding programs of fish, mollusc and shrimp species. Initially involved in the transfert of optimized within-group mass selection, he introduced DNA-based pedigree assignment to manage inbreeding and to invest in pedigree selection (or BLUP) in French breeding programs. Their design were upgraded to genomic selection for new traits as processing yield, lipid content, disease resistance, GxSite or triploidy interaction in developing genomic tools and new phenotyping technologies. Actually manager of a team of 12 geneticists, he also coordinate the development of selective breeding programs in pearl oyster and in honey bee aside to advices to other insect breeding in SYSAAF. He is Board member of FABRE-TP platform.

Gregor Gorjanc

Professor in Selective Breeding at The Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh.
I lead the Highlander Lab, where we manage and improve populations using data science, genetics, and breeding. We are interested in: i) methods for genetics and breeding, ii) design and optimisation of breeding programs, and iii) analysis of data to unravel biology and find new ways of improving populations.

Olga Ameixa

Olga Ameixa Assistant Researcher at the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) and the Department of Biology at the University of Aveiro
Her current research focusses on applying nature-based solutions to address pressing environmental and societal problems, such as biological control and, more recently, the use of insects to tackle the shortage of nutritious, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective feeds for aquaculture. Throughout her activities, she gained experience in rearing insects in tri-trophic systems and on artificial diets. All this contributed to her insight into insect mass rearing. Her broader research interests include insect biodiversity, ecology, and the ecosystem services they provide. In addition to her research, she is actively involved in academic teaching at the University of Aveiro, where she also supervises PhD, MSc, and undergraduate students. She is a member of the Management Committee of the COST Action Insect-IMP, where she leads the working group focused on insect mating behaviours.

Mert Kükrer

Mert Kükrer focuses on the evolutionary ecology and spatial and adaptive genetics of honey bee subspecies. He is interested in understanding how honey bees interact with their environment and how this affects their health and well-being. He is particularly interested in the impacts of human-driven environmental change on bee populations and the consequences for genetic diversity and winter losses. He is also interested in how we can use honey bees to help conserve other wildlife species. His research combines ecology and evolution to understand how species adapt to their changing environment at the genomic level and how this affects their diversity and distribution. The species he focuses on are either under threat, in conflict with humans, or intensively managed due to their economic importance. He use a combination of field and molecular methods to answer questions about the ecology and evolution of species, spanning multiple levels of organization, from genes to ecosystems.

Sreten Andonov

Full professor at the University Ss. Cyril and Methodius in North Macedonia and Senior Researcher and associate professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
His expertise lies in the evaluation of quantitative traits in livestock, with a particular focus on using linear and threshold models across various species, including honey bees. Sreten is also dedicated to practical applications of his research, serving as a breeding advisor for the national pig industry and participating in initiatives aimed at sustainable animal genetic resource management.

Laura Skubbeltrang Hansen

Post-doc at the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics (QGG), Aarhus University
Laura works exclusively on the optimisation of insect production for food and feed using genetic and genomic resources. Her main research expertise is genetic modelling of quantitative traits including genetic parameter and breeding value estimation, developing high-throughput phenotyping approaches tailored for insects, developing and simulating various insect breeding programs, implementing selective breeding at laboratory and production scale, and evaluating genetic progress and trade-offs in the insect populations. Her main focus species are the house fly (Musca domestica) and black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens). She was awarded her PhD in quantitative genetics in January 2024 and is employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics at Aarhus University, where she leads the Centre’s insect team.

David Deruytter

Full time researcher at INAGRO Insect Research Centre (IRC)
David Deruytter is a Master in Biology and has a PhD in ecotoxicology. He is a full-time insect researcher at the Insect Research Centre (IRC) of Inagro with 7 years of expertise with breeding Tenebrio molitor and Hermetia illucens at a pilot scale. He focuses on optimizing the production for insects for food and feed and more specifically: feed, climate and emissions. Besides this he has a love for statistics and standardization of experimental procedures ensuring more comparability between research and institutes. He is currently coordinator of the BugBook and a working group leader in the COST Action Insect-IMP on breeding objectives.

Esther Ellen

Deputy Head of Department Animal Breeding and Genomics, Wageningen University and Research
Esther is project leader of different projects related to using (new) technologies to phenotype individuals and using this information in animal breeding. Her projects focus on organoids (in vitro technologies), reproduction, sensor technologies to monitor individuals in groups, and designing insect breeding programs. She mainly works with poultry, pigs and insects.

Grum Gebreyesus

Assistant Professor at the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics (QGG), Aarhus University, with a Ph.D. in Quantitative Genetics and Genomics from Wageningen University and Aarhus University.
His research focuses on developing innovative phenotypes for livestock breeding, using technologies like computer vision and sensors in various species such as Black soldier fly, fish, pigs, and cattle. Grum plays a key role in various insect-for-feed projects, including co-leading the FlyGene project implemented by Aarhus University in Kenya and Uganda, and contributing to the FlyBreed project in collaboration with Enorm, Northern Europe’s largest BSF producer. He is also an active member of international research networks, including EU COST Actions focused on advancing livestock phenomics and sustainable insect breeding practices.