Acaricidal and Repellent Effects of Essential Oils against Ticks: A Review

Abstract

Tick control is a priority in order to prevent the transmission of vector-borne diseases. Industrial chemical acaricides and repellents have been the most efficient tools against hard ticks for a long time. However, the appearance of resistances has meant the declining effectiveness of the chemicals available on the market. The trend today is to develop alternative control methods using natural products to replace nonefficient pesticides and to preserve the efficient ones, hoping to delay resistance development. Traditional in vitro evaluation of acaricidal activity or resistance to synthetic pesticides have been reviewed and they mainly focus on just one species, the one host tick (Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus (Acari: Ixodidae)). Recent reports have called for the standardization of natural product components, extraction techniques, and experimental design to fully discover their acaricidal potential. This study reviews the main variables used in the bibliography about the efficiency of natural products against ticks, and it proposes a unification of variables relating to ticks, practical development of bioassays, and estimation of ixodicidal activity.

Laboratory Evaluation of Bigshot Maxim, Repelcare, and Clove Essential Oil, Syzygium Aromaticum Against the Lone Star Tick, Amblyomma Americanum

“…It showed to be >90% effective against female and male adult ticks up to one day after application and >90% effective against nymphal ticks up to two days after application. The limited residual effects were a result of the product containing essential oils which are highly volatile (Koul et al 2008;Salman et al 2020;Selles et al 2021).…”

“…The types of chemicals available on the market for protection against ticks are very limited and the primary chemicals used are N, N-diethyl-3methylbenzamide (DEET) and permethrin (Meng et al 2016). Unfortunately, the intensive use of chemicals has resulted in populations of ticks being resistant to these chemicals (Rodriguez-Vivas et al 2017;Selles et al 2021). Not only was there concern about insecticide resistance, but there was also a growing fear for environmental impact and public apprehension to use these chemicals due to the perception that synthetics are harmful.…”

Emerging Hyalomma lusitanicum: From identification to vectorial role and integrated control

“…There has been limited published research conducting testing the effect of acaricidal active ingredients on H. lusitanicum (Selles et al, 2021). Oxalic acid (OA) is one of the most common organic treatments for varroosis in honey bees worldwide and appears to be compatible with organic farming and would be relatively safe for honey bees and other insects.…”

“…whose use should be considered, where feasible, as an integral part of a successful integrated pest management plan. Only a few tick natural enemies have been evaluated to date as potential tick biocontrol agents (Samish et al, 2004), and very few biological control agents have been tested against H. lusitanicum (Selles et al, 2021).…”

Acaricides Resistance in Ticks: Selection, Diagnosis, Mechanisms, and Mitigation

“…Factors such as identification of suitable phyto-metabolites, extraction time of phytochemicals, the concentration of extracts, odors of plant-derived extracts, extracted plant age, specie of ticks, and exposure time of ticks may have undermined the research on phytotherapeutic alternatives. During many years, various studies were focused on the identification of natural resources, but recent research has focused on chemical standardization, quality of phytochemicals for tick control, and other issues like long-term stability, storage, and transportation of different plant extracts, which are essential for the commercial availability of these products ( Benelli and Pavela, 2018 ; Selles et al., 2021 ).…”