Attract-and-kill strategy. Laboratory studies on hatched larvae of Culex pipiens.

The attract-and-kill strategy is a new pest management technique that presupposes the intelligent combination of an attracting agent (e.g. pheromone) and a killing agent (e.g. insecticide). In the present study, the potential combination of the microencapsulated synthetic oviposition pheromone 6-acetoxy-5-hexadecanolide with an insecticide has been tested. Initially, polyurea microcapsules containing 6-acetoxy-5-hexadecanolide, the synthetic mixture of diastereomers of the oviposition pheromone of the mosquito species Culex quinquefasciatus Say (Diptera: Culicidae), were studied. Laboratory bioassays were performed to confirm the bioactivity of the microencapsulated pheromone on the oviposition activity of Culex pipiens L. biotype molestus Førskal (Diptera: Culicidae) with the aim of determining the optimum dose for oviposition response. Its effect was dose dependent, revealing an optimum dose of 300 mg of dried microcapsules. Attractancy over time was also studied. The microencapsulated pheromone was found to be sufficiently attractive to gravid female mosquitoes for a period of 40 days. Finally, the combination of the synthetic pheromone with the control agent temephos showed both an acceptable oviposition activity and sufficient larvicidal effect.