Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies 2020; 8(3): 1921-1925
E-ISSN: 2320-7078
P-ISSN: 2349-6800
www.entomoljournal.com
JEZS 2020; 8(3): 1921-1925
© 2020 JEZS
Received: 22-03-2020
Accepted: 24-04-2020
Shilpi Devi Borah
M.Sc. (Ag.) Department of
Sericulture, Assam agricultural
University, Jorhat, Assam,
India.
Praban Boro
M.Sc. (Ag.) Department of
Sericulture, Assam agricultural
University, Jorhat, Assam,
India.
Corresponding Author:
Shilpi Devi Borah
M.Sc. (Ag.) Department of
Sericulture, Assam agricultural
University, Jorhat, Assam,
India.
A review of nutrition and its impact on silkworm
Shilpi Devi Borah and Praban Boro
Abstract
Feeding is one of the major factor in silkworm rearing. Optimum feeding includes healthy host plant
leaves available with essential nutrients. Nutrition is the basic unit of silkworm for growth and
development. It is very much important to know the basic knowledge of nutrition about insects and it
helps while studying life cycle of any particular insect or worms. The insects also have the same
nutritional requirement as like other plants and animals such as protein, vitamins, carbohydrates etc. The
basic nutrients needed by insects are less in amount as compared to other living organism like human
beings or any other animals. The quantity of nutrients acquired by insect varies upon their body sizes.
Since silkworm is a type of insect comes under lepidopteron order it also requires same nutrients for their
better growth. Silkworm consumes their essential nutrients and water from their feed. If the healthy host
plant leaves are not provided, available with essential nutrients the consequences are seen in the different
instars of silkworms.
Keywords: Silkworm, nutrition, major nutrients, nutritional impact
Introduction
Nutrition is the most important and very much essential component for all the living being.
Without nutrition or nutritious food it is impossible for any living organism to survive and
attain a healthy disease free growth. Like other organisms silkworms are also very much
sensitive towards nutritional factor. It is well known that the amount and quality of leaves
affects growth rate, developmental period, body weight and survival rate of larvae, as well as
influencing the subsequent fecundity, longevity, movement and competitive ability of the
adults. [1]. If the optimum required nutrients are not present in the leaves then silkworm acquire
disease and the percentage of effective rate of rearing will be decrease as the mortality rate is
higher in silkworm which is reared in poor foodstuff.
Nutritional requirements are the chemical factors of ingested food essential for normal
metabolism and development of insect [2]. In general, there is evidence that nutritional
requirements of young insects may vary with sex, change with developmental stage. Insects
generally have the same nutritional requirements as large animals. The balance of nutrients is
very important to most studied insects [3, 4]. Balance may be important due to small body size
[5]
. Insects may respond to imbalance diet in one of the three ways- They can alter the total
amount of ingested food; they can move from one food to another with a different nutrient
balance; or they can regulate the effectiveness of the nutrients [4]. The required essential
nutrients such as carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, vitamins and amino acids, water etc are
generally present in the natural food plants of the species.
Food is ingested and digested by silkworm for metabolism and to supply all kinds of essential
nutrients for its growth and development [6]. Feed utilization studies are generally confined to
4th and 5th instar of silkworm larvae as 80% of total leaves was consumed in these instars.
Feed conversion efficiency contributes directly or indirectly to the major chunk of the cost
benefit ratio of silkworm rearing and is considered to be an important physiological criterion
for evaluating the superiority of silkworm breeds [7]. In silkworm, different breeds vary in their
growth, development, food consumption, utilization and conversion efficiency. Food
conversion efficiency in silkworm varies according to the environmental conditions, food
quality and also quantity of food [8].
Major nutritional requirement of silkworm
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrate is a major source of energy for most of the insects. For silkworm, carbohydrate
is a very important fuel source.
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They may be converted to lipids, and may contribute to the
production of amino acids. Many carbohydrates, especially
sugars, are powerful feeding stimulants. A functional
carbohydrate sometimes may appear as non-functional if it is
not ingested effectively [4, 9, 5]. Carbohydrates are very
important for silkworm but they are not essential because,
they can be synthesized from lipids or amino acids [9].
Different carbohydrate utilization depends on the ability of
silkworm to hydrolyze polysaccharides. The nutritive effects
of carbohydrates were studied either by determining their
effects on weight gain and survival or by assaying the rate of
conversion to blood trehalose or fat body glycogen [10], both
of them occurring as main carbohydrates in the body, when
each compound was administered orally to the larvae without
any other nutrient. Since some of sugars possess a strong
phagostimulating action for silkworm larvae, it was afraid to
get a misleading result when synthetic diets containing
different sugars were compared. Similar to other species of
insects, silkworm larva did not show any specific
requirements for carbohydrates, although several compounds
were utilized more readily than others. In general pentoses
were poorly utilized. Of hexoses tested, glucose, fructose, and
mannose were utilized well. Disaccharides, especially
sucrose, cellolose, and maltose, were uniformly good.
Trisaccharides, melezitose and raffinose, showed a high
value. Among sugar alcohols only sorbitol was utilized.
Utilization of polysaccharides was entirely dependent on
silkworm strains that is on the presence or absence of
amylases in digestive juice. Furthermore, nutritive values of
various oligosaccharides were shown to be relating with the
presence or absence of corresponding glycosidases [11].
Protein and Amino acid
Most insects probably have need of optimum level of proteins
in their diet for the best growth, but this varies largely for
different species. They are used for structural purposes, as
enzymes, receptors, for transport and storage [12]. Many
insects digest proteins from their food in order to get amino
acids. Protein is one of the essential materials of the body. It
is the most important component of cell molecular structure
for survival. It can adjust and control the substance for
metabolism and physiological function of the silkworms by
combining active substances like enzyme, hormone etc. with
other substances. Adult female silkworm needs protein to
mature their ovaries and eggs. It is crucial for successfully
secrete juvenile hormone (JH) that is required for ovary and
egg development. Male silkworm usually does not require
protein to mature their sperm when they become adults. In
general, optimal nutritional requirements change with age,
sex, and physiological stress [9].
The amino acids, obtained from the leaf, are utilized by the
silkworm larvae for body growth, development, and cocoon
formation. Amino acids essential for growth and survival of
the silkworm larvae are arginine, histidine, leucine,
isoleucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine,
trythophan, and valine, aspertic acid, Glutamic acid [13]. These
amino acids are needed by silkworm for their growth,
development and survival but they cannot synthesize or the
amount of synthesis is very less and they must ingest from
food, so they are called essential amino acids. These essential
amino acids are same as those needed by other insects without
any of them, silkworm cannot grow [6]. In addition to these
twelve essential amino acids, the silkworm required proline,
but proline was considered to be semi-essential, since some
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growth was obtained even in the absence of proline. However,
so-called non-essential amino acids, alanine, cystine, glycine,
serine and tyrosine are also important, because they motivate
growth of the silkworm. Optimal growth was obtained by the
addition of these non-essentials. The nutritive effect of these
non-essentials was clearly observed, even when acidic amino
acids were previously included in the diet. The actual silk
fibre fibroin is derived from four kinds of amino acids viz.,
Alanine, Serine, Glycine and Tyrosin come from the food
material of silkworm. The amino acid Alanine plays an
important role in metabolism of glucose, tryptophan and
organic acid. Amino acids are the next most important
constituents in silkworm nutrition [13].
Lipids
Lipids are the bound fatty acids, short and long chain
alcohols, steroids and theirs esters, phospholipids, and other
groups of compounds. Silkworms are able to convert
carbohydrates into lipids, and can synthesize lipids and
accumulate them in body tissue [9]. Fatty acids, phospholipids
and sterols are components of cell walls in addition to having
other specific functions. The silkworm larvae require
polyunsaturated fatty acids such as linoleic and linolenic acids
for their normal growth and development [5]. Moths deficient
in these fatty acids have defects in wing formation and their
scales adhere to the pupal case on emergence. A trace amount
of lipids or sterols in a diet may positively influence growth
and development [14]. Silkworm requires sterol in the diet
because they can’t synthesize the sterol or can’t synthesize
enough to meet their physiological requirements. Besides
being a part of all cellular membranes, a sterol is the precursor
for synthesizing the molting hormone of silkworm. Thus,
deficiency of a sterol in the diet results in incapability of the
silkworm to molt and they typically die in the early instars [9,
5]
.
Water
Phytophagous insects normally feed on diets with high water
content. However, the amount may vary for the different
species. In the silkworm the highest content is water which
reaches more than 75 percent. It is necessary to have that
much water for the silkworm in all kinds of life process,
especially in digestion. Water is the best solvent and only in a
solution state all kinds of nutrients can be absorbed into cells.
Important chemical reactions in life activities take place only
in solution. Moreover, only water can be used as the
transportation of nutrients and the waste matter. It can also
adjust the body temperature and keep it relatively stable [6].
Fibre
Fibre is not grouped under nutrients. It comprises largely of
cellulose and lignin and these substances belong to polymeric
carbohydrates. Its intake along with all diet is essential
because of regulatory function and help to maintain the
normal peristaltic movement of the intestine to remove waste
product from the Intestine [15].
Vitamins
Vitamins, a kind of organic active substance mainly are the
component enzyme and other catalysts. They are essential
substances to adjust the physiological function and
metabolism in cells [6]. The silkworm mainly requires vitamin
B complex and Ascorbic acid for their growth and
development. Essential vitamins under vitamin B complex
Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies
requires for silkworm are choline, inositol, nicotinic acid
pantothenic acid, pyridoxine, riboflavin, thiamine, biotin and
folic acid [13].
Ascorbic Acid
Ascorbic acid has many important functions in the silkworm
body. It is a powerful antioxidant, protecting against oxidative
damage to DNA, membrane lipid and proteins ([16]. The
absence of ascorbic acid in the diet of first and second instar
larvae postpones growth and development of silkworm [17].
Ascorbic acid significantly increased the weight of silkworm
larvae [18].
Thiamine (B1)
Thiamine is important for energy metabolism. The weight of
larvae and silk glands in all the thiamine fed groups had not
shown any significant changes. On the other hand, larval
duration, cocoon weight, shell weight and fecundity increased
significantly [19].
Riboflavin (B2)
Riboflavin is important in promoting the release of energy
from carbohydrates, fats and proteins i.e. in the metabolic
pathway for ATP production. The enrichment of leaves with
riboflavin enhanced certain economic characters of silkworm,
and improved silk production [20].
Niacin (B3)
Vitamin B3 comes into two forms, nicotinic acid and
nicotinamide. Either form can satisfy the requirement for this
vitamin in insects. Niacin, requires for cell respiration, help
with the release of energy and metabolism of carbohydrates,
lipid and proteins [21]. Vitamin B3 is essential for silkworm
but a high dose of vitamin B3 in silkworm diet interrupts
larval feeding, and normal growth. High mortality of larvae
occurs during moulting and they cannot complete this process
normally [22].
Pantothenic Acid (B5)
Vitamin B5 usually required for growth and development of
the silkworm, which are unable to synthesize. Vitamin
B5functions as a cofactor for enzymes and are required in the
diet of all the silkworms [12]. Pantothenic acid is the precursor
of coenzyme A that is vital for the metabolism of
carbohydrates, the synthesis and degradation of fats, the
synthesis of sterols and the resultant steroid hormones [19].
Pyridoxin (B6)
Vitamin B6 in very much essential for silkworm but in low
concentration. Low concentration of vitamin B6 increases the
larval body weight, pupal weight, silk gland weight, cocoon
and shell weight. But a high dose of vitamin B6 in silkworm
diet interrupts the regular and optimum growth and
development of the silkworm [23].
Biotin (B8)
Biotin has an important role in carbohydrate and fat
metabolism. It has been showed that biotin is one of the
essential vitamins for the silkworm [24]. It has important role
in the synthesis of fatty acids in the silkworm and minimal
optimal level of biotin for growth and survival of the
silkworm is much lower than those of other vitamins [25].
Choline and Inositol
Choline is traditionally not a vitamin; however it was
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identified as part of vitamin B complex. Choline and inositol
are required by silkworm in higher level because they are
involved in the production of cell membranes. Inositol is an
important part of signaling mechanism that transmits
information from outside to the inside of cells. Inositol is also
required by silkworm in higher level because like choline, it is
also involved in the production of cell membranes [19].
Minerals
Minerals may represent a limiting factor for the growth of the
insects, principally true for all types of diet composition [26]
The salt significantly improved the growth of the
developmental stages, increased the cocoon characters,
elicited early cocoon production and increased the
reproductive potential of the silkworms. Nutritional
supplementation of nickel chloride, potassium iodide and
copper sulphate increased the economic parameters of the
silkworm. It is reported that nickel chloride considerably
increased the growth of silkworm larvae, pupae, adults and
subsequently cocoon production but higher salt concentrations
produced terminal effects on these parameters [27]. The cocoon
weight was increased after feeding silkworm larvae with
nickel and zinc fortified mulberry leaves [28].
Impact of Nutrition in Sericulture
All the four kind of silkworm viz., eri, muga, mulberry and
tasar obtain their all essential nutrients from the leaves which
they taken as food. The nutritional status of the leaves can be
improved by enriching them with vitamins and other nutrients
[17]
. The feeding of nutritionally enriched leaves showed better
growth and development of silkworm larvae, as well as
directly influence on the quality and quantity of silk
production [29].
The host leaves mainly constitute proteins, carbohydrates,
vitamins, sterols, phagostimulants and minerals. Such
nutritional requirement in food consumption have direct
impact on the all genetic traits such as larval and cocoon
weight, quantity of silk production, pupation and reproductive
traits [30].
Leaf supplemented with vitamin B derivatives enhanced
disease resistance, body weight and silk yield in silkworm [31],
while, another vitamin, ascorbic acid enhanced the larval
survival rate [32].
Zinc plays an important role in larval growth and
development by stimulating metabolism through enhanced
enzyme activities, hormonal mediation, replication,
transcription and neuronal activity [33, 34].
Supplementation of soya protein fortified leaves to the larvae,
the larval period may have beneficial effects on the growth of
the silkworm and also increase the quality and quantity of the
silk cocoon production [29].
Ascorbic acid enhanced silk yield of silkworm. Combined
effect of 0.2% N + 0.1% P + 0.3% K and 0.1% Ca has a
spectacular effect on the growth of silkworm. It has also been
observed that the quality of silk was also improved [35].
Salts administrated in food determined a decrease of the larval
development period, growth characteristics of cocoon and
reproductive growth potential. Administration of additional
copper sulphate, nickel chloride and potassium iodide in the
food increased economic parameters of the silkworm [36, 37].
Larvae were fed with leaves supplemented with multimineral
at the end of the 5th instar had a significant increase in body
mass compared to the mass of larvae without multiminerals.
The total protein content presented a significant increase in all
Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies
multimineral treatments [38]. Increases in glycogen in the fat
body have been reported after feed supplementation with
potassium sulfate and zinc chloride [39].
Administering of potassium sulfate in the food determines
protein decrease in the fat body and the hemolymph of
silkworm [40], but zinc chloride causes a significant decrease
of fat body protein content and a significant increase in
hemolymph protein content [39].
Oral supplements of potassium permanganate lead to increase
of protein content in both the fat body and the hemolymph [41].
It is well known fact that, the vitamins are required for proper
functioning of enzymes systems. In silkworm, growth is quite
improved by adding pyridoxine to the diet which in turn
reflects on commercial characters. In silkworm, pyridoxine
deficiency leads to retard in growth of silk gland, reduction in
protein in haemolymph, increase in uric acid excretion and
alteration in free amino acid composition of haemolymph [42].
Royal jelly is obtained from Apis mellifera colonies. The
royal jelly increases moulting and larval weight of silkworm.
It contains acetylcholine, which is important requirement in
the diet of silkworm larvae for normal moulting as well as
growth. The rapid growth and developmental as well as
increased number of eggs can be obtained by addition of royal
jelly to the leaves. Effect of leaves fortified with royal jelly
does not show any significant differences on shell weights
over normal feeding silkworm [43].
The silkworm can be reared on different kinds of dietary
protein viz., soybean, black gram, mushroom and mixture of
them using semi-artificial diet. Larvae feed on such diet
containing soybean all over the 5th instar larvae provides the
highest results on the weights of larvae, silk gland, pupa,
cocoon and cocoon shell and larval duration. Again this diet
gives the lowest mortality of the silkworm [44].
Supplementation of amino acids solutions, at definite level is
effective for improvement of growth and development of
silkworm, but a high level beyond the certain level does not
have a positive effect [45].
Vitamin B3 one of the essential vitamins comes in two forms
i.e., nicotinic acid and nicotinamide. Both can assure the
requirement of vitamin B3 in insects. It is mandatory for
respiration of cells which helps the release of energy and
metabolism of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates [46]. High-dose
of vitamin B3 in silkworm diet interrupted feeding as well as
normal growth and development of silkworm larva. Larvae
may suffer from the symptoms of “nicotinamide
hypervitaminosis” such as immobility, dyspepsia, darkening
of the skin and exerting brownish fluid from anus and
swelling of rectal muscles [17].
Conclusion
As a living being silkworm requires nutrients for their smooth
growth and developmental process. The Insects as well as
silkworms acquire their all necessary growth requirements
like nutrients (water also) from the naturally available
foodstuffs only. Unlike other animals silkworms do not feed
upon a wide range of foodstuff. They complete their life cycle
on their particular host leaves only. Monophagous mulberry
silkworm eats only mulberry leaves; growth and development
depends only on the nutrients present in mulberry leaves. Eri,
muga and tasar silkworms are phytophagous in nature and eat
varieties of leaf. Reproduction, egg production, body weight,
silkgland weight, cocoon weight etc are the biological and
economical characters of silkworm which are entirely depend
upon their host leaves. Now a days researchers are giving
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emphasis on artificial diet of the silkworm so that in
unavailability of host leaves and in adverse climatic condition
farmers can rear the silkworms. Hence from the reviews
summarize in this paper, it is cleared that nutrition is the key
factor in successful silkworm rearing and we have to give
more emphasize on silkworm nutrition to reach the top level
of success in sericulture sector.
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