The efficiency of conversion of ingested food to unit of body substance (ECI, also termed "growth efficiency") is an index measure of food fuel efficiency in animals. The ECI is a rough scale of how much of the food ingested is converted into growth in the animal's mass. It can be used to compare the growth efficiency as measured by the weight gain of different animals from consuming a given quantity of food relative to its size.
The ECI effectively represents efficiencies of both digestion (approximate digestibility or AD) and metabolic efficiency, or how well digested food is converted to mass (efficiency of conversion of digested food or ECD). The formula for the efficiency of food fuel is thus:
These concepts are also very closely related to the feed conversion ratio (FCR) and feed efficiency.
References
- Aryal, Achyut; Guan, Li-Ching; Xu, Wei (September 20, 2008), Influences of secondary metabolites on the performance of lepidopterous larvae (PDF), Forestry Nepal, archived from the original (PDF) on March 3, 2016, retrieved November 17, 2008
- Peterson, Mark (May 29, 2008), "Eating Bugs", Time, archived from the original on June 1, 2008, retrieved November 14, 2008
- Lindroth, Richard L. (March 1993), "Insect Food Conversion Efficiencies", The Food Insects Newsletter, vol. 6, no. 1, retrieved November 14, 2008
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