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Title: Prospects for repellent in pest control: current developments and future challenges

Author
item DELETRE, EMILIE - Centro De Cooperation Internationale En Recherche Agronomique Pour Le Development (CIRAD)
item SCHATZ, BERTRAND - National Council For Scientific Research-Cnrs
item BOURGUET, DENIS - Centro De Cooperation Internationale En Recherche Agronomique Pour Le Development (CIRAD)
item CHANDRE, FABRICE - National Council For Scientific Research-Cnrs
item Williams, Livy
item RATNADASS, ALAIN - Centro De Cooperation Internationale En Recherche Agronomique Pour Le Development (CIRAD)
item MARTIN, THIBAUD - Centro De Cooperation Internationale En Recherche Agronomique Pour Le Development (CIRAD)

Submitted to: Chemoecology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/8/2016
Publication Date: 5/19/2016
Citation: Deletre, E., Schatz, B., Bourguet, D., Chandre, F., Williams Iii, L.H., Ratnadass, A., Martin, T. 2016. Prospects for repellent in pest control: current developments and future challenges. Chemoecology. 26:1-16.

Interpretive Summary: Interest for environmentally safe insect pest control methods and the increase of insecticide resistance in pest populations have led to research on insect repellents as an approach to mitigate the impact of insect pests in medical and agricultural arenas. Understanding the biological characteristics of the repellent-insect interface is important because it facilitates development of repellents that are effective and safe, improves pest management decisions, and thus, increases the suppression of insect pests. We reviewed and synthesized the current state of repellency research, and suggested directions for future work and identified future challenges as well. Much work remains to be done toward improvement of repellents, including developing clearer definitions of the different repellent phenomena, designing improved testing methods that better quantify repellency, 3) understanding the underlying physiological mechanisms affecting repellency, and understanding how and why the efficacy of repellents may vary, especially under field (=real life) conditions. Based on behavioral responses of insects, five different types of repellency were recognized: expellency, irritancy, deterrency, odor masking, and visual masking. In the future, types of repellency might be better defined by mechanisms of action, that is, on molecular, biochemical, and physiological characteristics. Several hypotheses of physiological mechanisms for repellency were identified and discussed. This evaluation of the current state of repellency will help guide future research toward a better understanding of its fundamental aspects, and from an applied standpoint, improve prospects for repellent-based insect pest control.

Technical Abstract: The overall interest for environmentally safe pest control methods and the increased frequency of insecticide resistance in pest populations have stimulated research on insect repellents in the recent decades in medical and agricultural entomology. However, there remains a great deal of work to be done to best take advantage of repellency: 1) the different repellent phenomena should be better defined, 2) improved testing methods should be developed to better quantify repellency, 3) the underlying physiological mechanisms affecting repellency should be determined, and 4) studies should be conducted to evaluate efficacy, and the factors that mediate it, under field conditions. Five different types of repellency have been defined: expellency, irritancy, deterrency, odor masking, and visual masking. With precise and ordered bioassays where the stimuli vary it is possible to test and discriminate between them. Today these categories are defined by the insect’s behavioral response to different stimuli, but in future they could be defined by their mechanism of action. There are three main hypothesis of physiological mechanism: 1) a dose effect that modifies the behavior, 2) a repellent mechanism with specific receptors, or 3) an inhibition of the transduction of the neural information.