Vector and agricultural pest control
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| Abstract |
Many of the small-scale farmers in developing countries continue to use high volumes of pesticides for crop protection due to their illiteracy, and lack of adequate information. Such practices have resulted in many environmental problems such as effect on nontarget species, pesticide residue accumulation, development of resistance to pests, ecological imbalance by elimination of natural predators as well as environment pollution. The current critical situation is that many of the previously used and economically affordable insecticides are no longer effective and are also banned in many countries. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop newer, more effective, target specific and less persistent insecticides. In the search for developing newer insecticides, several researches had paid attention toward marine natural products. It is a well-known fact that the marine environment is an exceptional reservoir of bioactive natural products, which produce several novel structures with unique biological properties which may not be found in terrestrial natural products. In recent years, a number of studies have suggested that some of the bioactive compounds isolated from marine organisms exhibit pesticidal properties. Such bioactive metabolites from marine organisms may be an alternative source for vector and agricultural pest control agents. It is anticipated that these bioactive metabolites may potentially replace the existing and highly toxic synthetic insecticides and will play an important role in the future insecticide development program. This chapter provides an overview of recent trends in the exploration of marine secondary metabolites for pest management system. |
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