The Research Hotspots and Frontiers of Black Soldier Fly during 1994-2021: A Bibliometric Analysis

Black soldier fly (BSF) studies have attracted increasing scientific attention because of their role in determining sustainability. However, there exists rare quantitative analyses of the scientific literature on research of BSF, especially for visual analyzing from the systematical and bibliometric perspective has not been reported. Therefore, the investigation on the temporal development, scientific collaboration, research hotspots and frontiers in terms of BSF over the last 28 years (1994-2021) is executed for the first time. Combined with the Web of Science Core Collection database, this study collected 914 literatures from 1994 to 2021 that were conducted co-occurrence, co-citation and cluster analysis via CiteSpace software. The main findings are as follows: Firstly, research on BSF has advanced rapidly during the recent five years and Italy, USA and China were the three core force leaders countries with the high publications, centrality and cooperation degrees. In addition, Huazhong Agr Univ showed the core force ranked the third in the world of BSF research, which had high publications and strong cooperation with international institutions. Furthermore, in terms of keyword co-occurrence, time-zone and burst analysis delineated biological characteristics, application and management of BSF larvae were the main research themes. And early studies concentrated on BSF development and breeding, and current hotspots include exploiting BSF larvae as animal feed and recycling organic wastes. Additionally, based on co-cited references cluster analysis, it was concluded that the bioconversion and animal feed using the BSF larvae will still be the focus research fields in the near future, and the technical improvement on the efficiency of bioconversion, integrating the healthy, safety and eco-friendly that future studies should focus on, supporting policy making that indicate the prospective research field on BSF and it's applications.