Goutam C. ¹ , Siddhartasankar B. ² , Kuntal B. ^1,3 , Soroj C. ¹

1.Mosquito, Microbiology and Nanotechnology Research Units, Parasitology Laboratory, Department of Zoology, The University of Burdwan, Burdwan-713104, West Bengal, India
2.Department of Zoology, Netaji Mahavidyalaya, Arambagh, Hooghly, PIN-712601, India
3.Department of Zoology, Durgapur Government College, Durgapur, Burdwan, West Bengal, PIN-713214, India
Author    Correspondence author
Molecular Entomology, 2016, Vol. 7, No. 5   doi: 10.5376/me.2016.07.0005
Received: 03 Feb., 2016    Accepted: 16 Mar., 2016    Published: 09 May, 2016

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.

Chandra G., Banerjee S., Bhattacharya K., and Chatterjee S., 2016, Efficacy of a Locally Isolated Strain of Bacillus cereus as Mosquito Larvicide, Molecular Entomology, 7(05): 1-12

Isolation and characterization of a soil bacterial strain were done and its dose dependant larvicidal efficacy against immatures of Culex quinquefasciatus was evaluated in laboratory and field conditions. N was isolated from soil samples of Burdwan district, West Bengal, India. Morphological, biochemical and physiological characteristics were studied and 16S rDNA gene sequence alignment was done for taxonomic identity of the strain with the establishment of a dendogram. Laboratory bioassays were conducted to evaluate the larvicidal properties with the active formulation. The experiment was further detailed in field conditions to evaluate the larvicidal efficacy of the active formulation with determination of LC₅₀ values and quantification of costing effects on non-target water fauna. 16S r-DNA gene sequence analysis showed that this isolate N belongs to Bacillus cereus. The bioactive formulation of this isolate showed efficient larvicidal activity both in laboratory (LC₅₀=0.45 mg/dl, 0.53 mg/dl, 0.65 mg/dl and 0.76 mg/dl for 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th instars larvae respectively) and field conditions. The soil isolated bacterial strain showed potential of a biocontrol agent against mosquito immatures.

Soil isolated bacterium (N); Culex quinquefasciatus; Mosquito larvae; Biocontrol agent; Field experiment