Biological Effects of Linalool on Different Developmental Stages of Drosophila melanogaster (Diptera: Drosophilidae)

Botanical essential oils are natural products derived from plants, offering good eco-friendly alternatives for conventional insecticides. Although the insecticidal effectiveness of many essential oils is well known, with results mainly varying, depending principally on their chemical composition, limited information is currently available regarding the effectiveness of their individual major compounds against insect pests. In this study, we examined the impact of linalool, a primary monoterpene constituent present in many essential oils, on biological parameters of Drosophila melanogaster, a biological model commonly used to assess insecticide effectiveness. Results showed that linalool had noticeable insecticide activity and caused lethal effects against D. melanogaster with, LD10, LD25 and LD50 values of 9.79, 22.31 and 50.82 μg/larva respectively. Our findings indicate that linalool lethal and sublethal activities negatively impacted the growth and developmental parameters of the exposed individuals, such as prolonging larval and pupal duration and decreasing pupation and adult emergence. Finally, our results showed that linalool treatment, significantly shorten adult’s survival of both sexes. Linalool may represent a good alternative for synthetic chemical insecticides in managing agricultural pests.