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Botanical acaricides and repellents in tick control: current status and future directions

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Abstract

Ticks are obligate blood-sucking ectoparasites and notorious as vectors of a great diversity of, in many instances, zoonotic pathogens which can cause considerable damage to animal and human health. The most commonly used approach for the control of ticks is the application of synthetic acaricides. However, the negative impacts of synthetic acaricides on the treated animals and the environment, in addition to its documented role in the development of resistance has led to the search for safer and more environmentally friendly alternative methods without compromising efficacy. An emerging promising approach for the control of ticks which has attracted much attention in recent years is the use of botanicals. Indeed, botanicals have been widely reported to show diverse effects and great potential as tick repellent and control. Although several excellent reviews have previously focused on this topic, studies on the exploration and application of botanicals to control ticks have expanded rapidly. Herein, we provide an update on the current understanding and status of botanical acaricides and repellents in tick control using recently published articles between 2017 and 2019. We also discuss the challenges and future directions in the application of botanicals in tick control, with a view of providing important clues for designing new integrated tick control methods.

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Acknowledgements

Chuks F. Nwanade acknowledges China Scholarship Council (CSC) for awarding the doctoral scholarship. The authors would like to thank Dr. Abolfazl Masoudi for the language editing.

Funding

This work was supported by National Key R & D Program of China (2018YFC0506903), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31672365), the Youth Top Talent Support Program of Hebei Province to ZY, the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (C2019205064), the Financial Assistance for the Introduction of Overseas Researchers (C20190350), High level talent support project of Hebei Province (A201901031) and the Science Foundation of Hebei Normal University (L2018J04).

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Correspondence to Zhijun Yu or Jingze Liu.

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Nwanade, C.F., Wang, M., Wang, T. et al. Botanical acaricides and repellents in tick control: current status and future directions. Exp Appl Acarol 81, 1–35 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-020-00489-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-020-00489-z

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