Toxicological Studies on the Effect of some Agricultural and Wild Plants Extract as Insecticidal Agent on the Common House Mosquito, Culex pipiens in Bisha Region, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Culex pipiens plays a crucial role in the transmission of many vector-borne pathogens infecting humans, livestock and affecting wildlife. The present study was conducted in Laboratory of Biology Department, Faculty of Science, Bisha University, KSA, to evaluate the insecticidal activities of aqueous, ethanolic, and acetone extracts of each of nine selected wild plants, Calotropis procera, Withania somnifera, Citrullus colocynthis, Mentha longifolia, Datura innoxia, Ziziphus spina christi , Salvadora perssica, Aerva javanica, and Punica granatum against larvae of Cx. pipiens under controlled laboratory conditions (water temperature 28 ± 2 °C, 12:12 h photoperiod). After calculating the mortality percentages among treated larvae, LC 50 values could be arranged in an ascending order as follows: acetone extract < ethanolic extract < aqueous extract of C. procera , W. somnifera, C. colocynthis, M. longifolia, D. innoxia, and Z. spina-christi, respectively. On calculating the synergistic ratio (SR), it is found that the value of SR is greater than one in all tested extracts, except of Ziziphus spina which was lower than one. The SR of aqueous extract of Calotropis procera with Triton x100 (1.39) was higher than another one .