Plant essential oils have been reported to show repellent, insecticidal and growth-reducing effect on many insect herbivores. Recently, it has been reported that plants synthesize secondary metabolites regulating insect juvenile hormone (JH) receptor complex as a part of their defense mechanisms. We tested 180 plant essential oil compounds using a yeast two-hybrid system transformed with the Aedes aegypti JH receptor as a reporter system. Among them, we identified 17 compounds that showing high JH agonist (JHA) or antagonist (JHAN) activities. They were grouped into 4 groups by their structural similarity and their insecticidal activity was tested against larvae of Aedes albopictus, Plutella xylostella, Plodia interpunctella and Laodelphax striatellus. These results could provide insights on the plant-insect coevolution and may be useful for the development of insect specific and safe pesticides.

In this study, the toxic effects of fenoxycarb on biological traits of nontarger arthropod P. rosea, Collembola. The tests were assessed in the OECD artificial soil under two different exposure condtions, one was exposed in the bulk soil, and the other was exposed in the compacted soil which unidirectional force was applied to the soil surface. In the bulk system, survived adults and hatched juveniles were counted after 28-day exposures, and in the compact system, survived adults, eggs, hatched juveniles and molts were counted everyday until no more hatching. The toxic effect of fenoxycarb on survival and juvenile production of P. rosea in the bulk system was more toxic than that of the compact system. Juveniles and eggs were seriously affected as compared with toxic effect for adults. Particularly, toxic effect on hatching rate (3.75 mg/kg EC50juvenile) were very higher than that on oviposition (200.868 mg/kg EC50egg) or survival rate of adults ( >1200 mg/kg LC50). The molting freauency of P. rosea was decreased in a concentration dependent manner. These results suggest that the IGRs fenoxycarb exhibit significant impacts on the biological traits of non-target organisms P. rosea and its toxic effects are differently assessed depending on the exposure conditions.