Abstract
BackgroundBeing a low-risk insecticide, plant essential oils emerge as competent mosquitocidal and repellent candidates. However, essential oil may act differently in different mosquito species and different developmental stages of same mosquito species. In the current investigation, we evaluated the ovicidal, larvicidal, adulticidal and repellent activities of essential oil extracted from the leaves of Lippia alba against two medically important mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus. The efficacy of the oil was assessed under laboratory conditions against different developmental stages of the selected species.ResultsFrom the findings, it can be inferred that L. alba oil is more effective as a repellent against both the targeted mosquito species. Results also demonstrated that ovicidal, larvicidal and repellent properties of the essential oil were higher against Culex quinquefasciatus than Aedes aegypti. GC-MS analysis of the oil showed the presence of aromadendrene oxide, caryophyllene oxide, etc. as major constituent compounds.ConclusionThe outcomes of this study clearly indicated that the essential oil of L. alba has the potentiality to act more effectively as a repellent, followed by a larvicidal agent against mosquito and at the same time the results revealed differential vulnerability of different mosquito species and their life stages against a particular plant essential oil.
Highlights
Being a low-risk insecticide, plant essential oils emerge as competent mosquitocidal and repellent candidates
The efficacy of essential oil from leaves of L. alba has not been studied widely against mosquitoes, the repellent activity was established against A. aegypti (Castillo, Stashenko, and Duque, 2017)
The essential oil of L. alba was employed against different developmental stages of C. quinquefasciatus and A. aegypti, and it was found that the same plant oil exhibited different activity showing higher efficacy against C. quinquefasciatus than Aedes aegypti
Summary
Being a low-risk insecticide, plant essential oils emerge as competent mosquitocidal and repellent candidates. We evaluated the ovicidal, larvicidal, adulticidal and repellent activities of essential oil extracted from the leaves of Lippia alba against two medically important mosquito species, Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus. Repeated use of synthetic insecticides for controlling mosquitoes has created severe trouble like resurgences of mosquitoes and undesirable effects on non-target organisms. The efficacy of essential oil from leaves of L. alba has not been studied widely against mosquitoes, the repellent activity was established against A. aegypti (Castillo, Stashenko, and Duque, 2017). The repellent property of the plant was reported against stored grain pests (Peixoto et al 2015) Keeping it on the mind, a detailed study on the efficacy of L. alba (leaves) oil was done against all the developmental stages of C. quinquefasciatus and A. aegypti which is not found to be reported yet
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