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Essential oils for the development of eco-friendly mosquito larvicides: A review

2015; Elsevier BV; Volume: 76; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.indcrop.2015.06.050

1872-633X

Roman Pavela,

Insect Utilization and Effects

Mosquitoes serve as vectors for a wide variety of human and veterinary pathogens and parasites and cause extensive morbidity and mortality, and are a major economic burden within disease-endemic countries. Protection against mosquitoes is based on insecticides. However, the negative effects of synthetic insecticides have become the main impetus for an expeditious search for new alternatives, which would be acceptable for both the environment and public health. The use of insecticides based on plant extracts is currently highly promising from the alternatives of protection against insects. Many plant extracts that contain substances with insecticidal effects also include a large group of the so-called essential oils (EOs). The intensity of research focused on new EOs that could become suitable active substances for new botanical larvicides has been growing over the past few decades. The purpose of this review was to evaluate the current research on using EOs as potential larvicides based on their chemical composition and biological efficacy. The selected plants (their EOs), as the case may be, were therefore required to meet two essential conditions: (i) LC50 ≤ 100 ppm; and (ii) their chemical composition had to be known. In total, 122 plant species from 26 families were selected from the available literature. However, more than 2/3 of the plants (68.8%) were from only 5 families: Lamiaceae, Cupressaceae, Rutaceae, Apiaceae, and Myrtaceae. Considering the above-estimated LC50 value as the main criterion of efficacy, 77 showed LC50<50 ppm. Some of these efficient EOs were obtained from aromatic plants also grown commercially on relatively large areas, with a good technology of cultivation (e.g., Pimpinella anisum, Coriandrum sativum, Foeniculum vulgare, Mentha longifolia, Ocimum basilicum, Thymus spp., Eucalyptus spp., Piper spp., etc.). Such plants could become a suitable source of active substances for potential botanical larvicides. Only seven plants (Blumea densiflora, Auxemma glazioviana, Callitris glaucophylla, Cinnamomum microphyllum, Cinnamomum mollissimum, Cinnamomum rhyncophyllum, Zanthoxylum oxyphyllum) can be considered significantly most efficient, given that LC50<10 ppm has been estimated for their EOs. These EOs contained less common substances, predominantly from the group of sesquiterpenes, aromatic acids and ketones.