Abstract
Due to the numerous side effects of synthetic pesticides, including environmental pollution, threats to human health, harmful effects on non-target organisms and pest resistance, the use of alternative healthy, available and efficient agents in pest management strategies is necessary. In this paper, the susceptibility of the cosmopolitan, polyphagous, stored-product pest Tribolium castaneum (red flour beetle) to the fumigation of the essential oils of two important medicinal and food additive plants, Satureja hortensis and S. intermedia, was investigated. The insecticidal properties of the essential oils were modeled and optimized using response surface methodology. It was found that a maximum significant mortality of 94.72% and 92.97% could be achieved within 72 h with the applications of 55.15 µL/L of S. hortensis (with the linear model) and 58.82 µL/L of S. intermedia (with the quadratic model), respectively. There were insecticidal terpenes and phenylpropanoids in both essential oils, including thymol (50.8%), carvacrol (11.2%) and p-cymene (13.4%), in the S. intermedia and estragole (68.0%) and methyl eugenol (5.6%) in the S. hortensis. It was suggested that the essential oils of S. hortensis and S. intermedia could be offered as promising pesticidal agents against T. castaneum for further studies in the management of such pests instead of detrimental synthetic pesticides.
Highlights
The globally distributed insect pest, the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum Herbst (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), attacks several stored grain products such as beans, cereals, chocolate, flour, meal, nuts, seeds and spices [1]
The use of synthetic pesticides is the principal approach in pest management, the widespread use of these compounds has resulted in numerous side effects, such as environmental contaminations, the accumulation of hazardous residues in food and high toxicity to non-target organisms [8,9,10]
It can be seen that the essential oil of S. intermedia was rich in the phenolic monoterpenes thymol (50.8%) and carvacrol (11.2%) along with monoterpenes p-cymene (13.4%) and 1,8-cineole (4.3%)
Summary
The globally distributed insect pest, the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum Herbst (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), attacks several stored grain products such as beans, cereals, chocolate, flour, meal, nuts, seeds and spices [1]. The use of synthetic pesticides is the principal approach in pest management, the widespread use of these compounds has resulted in numerous side effects, such as environmental contaminations, the accumulation of hazardous residues in food and high toxicity to non-target organisms [8,9,10]. The resistance of T. castaneum to phosphine, as one of the commonly used fumigants against stored grain insect pests, was reported [11,12,13]. The introduction of low-risk, available and effective pesticides is essential to alternate with synthetic chemicals in the management of such pests
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