Sushanth V. Rai. , Rajashekhar M.

Department of Biosciences, Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri – 574 199, Karnataka, India
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2015, Vol. 5, No. 57   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2015.05.0057
Received: 29 Jul., 2015    Accepted: 28 Aug., 2015    Published: 27 Oct., 2015

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Sushanth V. Rai, Rajashekhar M., 2015, Effect of twelve species of marine phytoplankton on larval survival and development of the mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus, International Journal of Marine Science, 5(56): 1-5 (doi: 10.5736/ijms.2015.05.0057)

In the present study, effect of twelve species of marine phytoplankton on the growth and development of mosquito larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus was investigated. Among the 12 phytoplankton isolates, mortality of the larvae was observed in the suspensions of cyanobacteria species namely, Nostoc commune, Phormidium corium, P. tenue and planktonic green alga Nannochloropsis oceanica. N. oceanica showed effective larvicidal activity with 100% mortality of larvae. The development of larvae fed with phytoplankton cells was delayed compared to the control with respect to the first pupation period. The wing length of the adults emerged from the larvae fed with phytoplankton cells were shorter than control and those of adults emerged from Chroococcus turgidus, Oscillatoria geminata, Chaetoceros calcitrans and Skeletonema costatum treatment were similar in size to that of control. The present study showed that some species may serve as nutritious food for mosquito larvae, whereas others especially N. oceanica has the potential to be used as natural pesticide to control mosquito C. quinquefasciatus..

Larvicidal activity; Nannochloropsis oceanica; Probit analysis; Indigestible phytoplankton