Abstract
Although the application of synthetic chemicals is the main method in the management of insect pests, their overuse has led to public concerns about environmental pollution, threats to human health, and acute and chronic toxicity on non-target organisms. Plant essential oils have introduced as healthy, available, and effective alternatives to detrimental chemicals in recent years. Further, it is necessary to predict the exact amount of required pesticide to save costs and determine the optimal conditions for achievement to the best outcomes. Accordingly, the toxicity of Eucalyptus globulus Labill essential oil against the adults of a cosmopolitan pest Tribolium castaneum Herbst (red flour beetle) along with its modeling and optimization was assessed using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The coefficients of the essential oil concentration and time as independent variables are positive, showing their increase results in the augmentation of insect pest mortality. E. globulus essential oil showed prospective concentration-time dependent fumigant toxicity against T. castaneum. A quadratic polynomial equation was achieved for the toxicity of E. globulus essential oil using multiple regression analysis: 7.33413 + 0.20191A + 0.47313B + 4.64054E-003AB + 0.016349B2, in which A and B are the exposure time and essential oil concentration. The accuracy of the introduced model was approved through the analysis of variance. Results of the optimization indicated that 45.50 μl/l of essential oil and 72.00 h-exposure time would be adequate to achieve 92.45% mortality of T. castaneum. According to the results of current study, E. globulus essential oil has high potential in the management of T. castaneum and the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is a suitable method to the optimization and modelling of this bio-effect.
Highlights
Tribolium castaneum Herbst (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), the red flour beetle, is one of the major stored-product insect pests throughout the world
The goals of the present study can be categorized as 1) to evaluate the fumigant toxicity of the essential oil extracted from Eucalyptus globulus Labill against T. castaneum and 2) to find a mathematical model and optimized conditions for considered essential oil concentrations and exposure times in the mortality of insect pest by Response Surface Methodology (RSM)
The results showed that the tested concentrations of essential oil had promising fumigant toxicity against the adults of T. castaneum
Summary
Tribolium castaneum Herbst (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), the red flour beetle, is one of the major stored-product insect pests throughout the world. Chemical insecticides are widely used to protect agricultural products against insect pests but their overuse resulted in several worrying side-effects such as negative impacts on non-target organisms including fish, birds, and useful predators, parasitoids and pollinators' insects, contamination of groundwater, and their residues on foods and even in human breast milk (Shukla et al, 2006; Goulson, 2014; Reiler et al, 2015; Nicolopoulou-Stamati et al., 2016) In this circumstance, the current agricultural strategies have to introduce environmentally safe tools to reduce the utilization of synthetic chemicals. The goals of the present study can be categorized as 1) to evaluate the fumigant toxicity of the essential oil extracted from Eucalyptus globulus Labill against T. castaneum and 2) to find a mathematical model and optimized conditions for considered essential oil concentrations and exposure times in the mortality of insect pest by RSM
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