https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0037-2480
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ABSTRACT
Melicope pteleifolia is a traditional Chinese medicinal plant that is thought to be developed as a biological insecticide. In this work, essential oils (EOs) of M. pteleifolia (collected in 2021 and 2022) over different extraction time (1 h, 2 h, 5 h) were investigated for their chemical composition and insecticidal activities. The EOs extracted from fresh leaves in 2021 were named A1h, A2h and A5h, and extracted from fresh leaves in 2022 were named B1h, B2h and B5h. The chemical components of EOs were analyzed by GC-MS. α-Thujene is the common primary compound of the EOs A1h, A2h and A5h, which contained 83.27%, 63.86% and 25.17%, respectively. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that sesquiterpenes were the primary representative components in EOs. The EOs that were extracted for 5 h were significantly different from other EOs. Moreover, the EOs and α-thujene showed obvious contact and repellent activities against Lasioderma serricorne and Liposcelis bostrychophila. The gray correlation degree explained that EOs A2h and A5h had the strongest repellency against L. serricorne, while EOs A1h and B1h had the most significant repellent effect on L. bostrychophila, with coefficients above 0.50. The comprehensive score of weighting coefficient revealed that the scores of EOs A1h and A5h were the highest and both reached 0.80. In general, M. pteleifolia have the potential to be exploited as biological insecticide.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Author contributions
Conceptualisation, B.-Y.L.; Data curation, Q.-H.X.; Formal analysis, B.-Y.L. and S.X.; Investigation, J.-W.Z.; Methodology, Y.Z.; Resources, S.-S.D.; Supervision, D.W. and S.-S.D.; Validation, B.-Y.L.; Visualisation, Q.-H.X.; Writing—original draft, B.-Y.L.; Writing—review and editing, J.-W.Z. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.