Optimization of Green Lacewing (Mallada basalis) Survivability From Hatching and Foraging Behavior
Pannathorn Siri, Poon Trakultangmun, and Teepakorn Keawumdee · Bangkok, Thailand
Regeneron Young Scientist Award ($50,000) · Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair · 2023
An incubation chamber designed around the hatching and foraging behaviour of the green lacewing, a natural predator of the mealybug, to make biological pest control practical at the scale a farm would need.
Reported a five-fold increase in lacewing survival rate.
The design follows from the behaviour rather than from general husbandry principles — the chamber exists because of what the larvae do after hatching. A five-fold change is the kind of margin that survives scale-up.
- Insect rearing and incubation chamber design
- Hatching-rate measurement
- Foraging behaviour observation
- Survival-rate comparison
- Study the organism's behaviour first; the engineering requirement usually falls out of it
- Biological control projects are judged on whether the numbers hold outside the chamber, so design for the field
Archive entries are summaries compiled for study. Read them for how a project was structured, argued, and defended — not as a template to reproduce. Copying someone else's project is the one thing that will end yours.
Compiled by ResearchForge from the Society for Science public award announcement linked on this record. Names, hometowns, project titles and reported results are as published. The "why it worked" and "what to take from this" notes are ResearchForge's editorial reading of that public record — they are not statements by the students and not the judges' rationale. All rights to the original projects remain with their authors; no project materials are rehosted here.