Medicinal Plants for Anopheles stephensi Liston Larvae Management

Abstract

Plants contain several secondary metabolites which are known to be effective in controlling a variety of insects. Chemical insecticides have been used for controlling the breeding of mosquitoes. Due to the problem of insecticide resistance and undesirable effects on non target organisms, a search for alternative larvicidal sources is necessary. Plant secondary metabolites are an ideal source for larvicides. In this study, larvicidal efficacy of different solvent (hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate, acetone and methanol) crude leaf extracts was investigated against fourth-instar larvae of Anopheles stephensi. Larval bioassay tests were carried out as per WHO protocol and mortality was recorded after 24 h exposure. High larval mortality was observed in acetone extract of Elaeagnus indica with LC50 and LC90 values of 41.18 and 96.37 ppm respectively. The chloroform extract of B. maderaspatensis also showed a high larval mortality with LC50 and LC90 values of 49.18 ppm, and 145.45 ppm respectively. The results of this study revealed that larvicidal potential of acetone extract of Elaeagnus indica and chloroform extract of Blepharis maderaspatensis further effort to characterize the bioactive compounds can be used for effective mosquito control.