Eating less nutritious food makes fatty cockroaches more

Cockroaches are small enough to wriggle through the smallest openings, but like humans these persistent animals can get fat if they have an unhealthy diet.

The study of cockroaches, Patricia Moore of Exeter University investigated how cockroaches change the mating behavior corresponding to the diet, especially those they eat when they are young.

"We know that what we eat when we grow up affects their reproductive decisions," Moore said . But how do the food they eat when they form these decisions? This is still not well understood. '

In order to find the answer, Moore and his colleagues collected eggs that were cockroached and divided into two groups. One group was fed a balanced diet, ensuring nutrition, containing high protein fish and oatmeal with lots of carbohydrates. Meanwhile the other group is only fed with fish food.

A tropical cockroach. (Photo: dreamstime)

Both groups were given free food. According to Ms. Moore, 'the difference in diet is not about quantity but about diversity'.

After the first molting, when the cockroaches mature, the research team switched the diet. The cockroach group was previously fed with a quality-guaranteed diet without any oatmeal anymore. The other group before being fed with poor food now switched to a nutritious diet.

18 days later, the controlled diet ended, some cockroaches were separated. The rest continued to be raised and reproduced.

As a result: while cockroaches' lifespan is similar in both groups, those fed with a nutrient-poor diet are fatter but take longer to mature.

Moore suggests that cockroaches have accumulated fat during the development process when their diets can become poorer.

Gromphadorhina portentosa - Madagascar wind cockroach. (Photo: Natural History Museum, London)

According to Moore, 'this is a surprising result but it shows the importance of a balanced diet for healthy development'.

The effect of an unbalanced diet lasts the life of cockroaches, even for those that have been converted to a better quality diet.

Inadequate feeding cockroaches are less willing to mate with males, and the ability to lay eggs is also lower. They are also more picky and take a long time to consider their partner choices.

The discovery was published in the June 24 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Moore, saying: 'Early poor diets affect the way cockroaches react to the lips. school and later cannot be recovered '.