Effect of Ageratum houstonianum Mill. (Asteraceae) leaf extracts on the oviposition activity of Anopheles stephensi, Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract

Plant extracts have been studied extensively for their insecticidal activity against immature stages and adult mosquitoes. They have also been reported to influence the habitat preference of ovipositing mosquitoes. Ageratum houstonianum, a medicinal plant belonging to the family Asteraceae, has been reported to possess insecticidal activity, and in the present study, the ovipositional attractant/deterrent activity was studied. The effect of Ageratum houstonianum crude leaf extracts on the oviposition of Anopheles stephensi, Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus was studied at 0.1 % concentration in laboratory. Among hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol crude leaf extracts, methanol showed an effective deterrent activity against all the three vector species with an oviposition active index of -0.8, -0.8 and -0.9, respectively. Field trials carried out to study the effect of 0.1 % methanol extract on oviposition of Aedes species indicated effective deterrence ranging from 79.0 to 100.0 % in indoor and 74.6 to 100.0 % in outdoor ovitraps. The potential oviposition deterrent property of Ageratum houstonianum crude leaf extracts observed in both laboratory and field studies indicates the presence of phytocompounds that act as effective contact deterrent. Further, isolation, identification and preparation of suitable formulation of the effective phytocompounds of Ageratum houstonianum that act as a contact deterrent are required.

Habitat discrimination by gravid Anopheles gambiae sensu lato – a push-pull system

“…Whilst the observed avoidance behaviour towards the organically rich pellet infusion was strong and in the same range as reported for other species in response to unfavourable chemical cues [107,108,110], the observed preference in the cages for the soil infusion was relatively weak and it is questionable whether it could compete with other suitable habitats from a larger distance. Nevertheless, consistent response derived from over 150 replicates in two experiments likely represents a genuine effect.…”

Evaluation of Pharmacognostic Characteristics of the Leaf of Ageratum houstonianum Mill. Compositae

“…Folklorically, the juice is employed for wound healing, skin ulcers, pains and tumours (Mohammadi, 2017;Wiedenfield and Andrade-Cetto, 2001). Some of the reported biological activities include antimicrobial (Tennyson, 2011) antibacterial, antifungal (Kumar, 2014;Pandey et al, 1983), antidiabetic (Srinivas et al, 2012), wound healing (Shin et al, 2017), insecticidal and ovipositional deterrent (Tennyson et al, 2012). Compounds isolated from this plant are alkaloids such as heliohoustine and lycopsamine (Srinivas et al, 2012;Wiedenfield and Andrade-Cetto, 2001), flavones such as agehoustines A, B.…”

Isolation of Insecticidal Constituents from the Essential Oil ofAgeratum houstonianumMill. againstLiposcelis bostrychophilaBadonnel

“…The chemical composition of the essential oil of A. houstonianum has been studied previously [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. It is reported that essential oil and extracts derived from the aerial parts (leaves) of A. houstonianum exhibit antifungal, antimicrobial, acaricidal, and mosquitocidal activity as well as repellency against mosquitoes [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. However, a literature survey has shown that there is no report on insecticidal and repellent activity of the essential oil of A. houstonianum against L. bostrychophila.…”