Abstract
Plant-derived or botanical insecticides are biopesticides experiencing substantial ongoing increase in interest. The 74 years of our literature survey tracked over 2500 papers on botanical insecticides published between 1945 and 2019 (Web of Science database). Such a survey allowed meta-analyses to recognize current status and biases of the studies providing important insights into the research topic. They include the recognition of the exponential growth of such studies since the 1990s, the prevalent interest on the Meliaceae plant species and a dozen additional families, although some 190 families have been investigated. The arthropods targeted by such studies were pest species (ca. 95%) with rather little attention devoted to non-target species (p < 0.001). This bias is followed by another one-mortality assessments are prevalent among target and non-target arthropod species when contrasted with sublethal assessments (p < 0.01). These omissions are pivotal, as they fail to recognize that sublethal effects may be as important or even more important than mortality, and that initial insecticide deposits quickly degrade over time leading to prevailing sublethal exposure. Furthermore, although the target of control is limited to few species, non-target species will be exposed and as such need to be factored into consideration. Thus, these biases in studies of botanical insecticides incur in knowledge gaps with potential consequences for the practical use of these compounds as pest management tools.
Highlights
The creation of the Garden of Eden probably did not involve the use of pesticides, nor any agrochemical for that matter
There are controversies about this tale of pesticide genesis [1], what leads to another musing—if men had not procrastinated as much on the conception of insecticides, the Amorites would not have been defeated by the Israelites who were aided in their troubles by swarms of hornets, and lice and locust would not have plagued Egypt as much as to potentially compromise the Exodus
The process adopted for the systematic literature survey and subsequent meta-analyses followed the guidelines of “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses” (PRISMA) [27], which involved the steps of identification, screening/elimination, eligibility, and inclusion; they are briefly described below
Summary
The creation of the Garden of Eden probably did not involve the use of pesticides, nor any agrochemical for that matter. Alas, it did not last as long as desired. There are controversies about this tale of pesticide genesis [1], what leads to another musing—if men had not procrastinated as much on the conception of insecticides, the Amorites would not have been defeated by the Israelites who were aided in their troubles by swarms of hornets, and lice and locust would not have plagued Egypt as much as to potentially compromise the Exodus. Regardless of their genesis, insecticides do exist and are ubiquitous permeating the Earth biosphere during the Anthropocene [2,3,4,5]
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