BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF MOSQUITO LARVAE USING EDIBLE FISH.

Mosquito control has been a point of focus in scientific communities, especially health-providing units. Various methods have been tried and many more still being developed to eliminate or reduce mosquito populace. Certain environmental issues related with chemical control of mosquitoes have convinced experts to opt for eco-friendly methods. Among those methods are the biological control methods, which suppress vector populations through introduction/manipulation of organisms (natural enemies, e.g., parasites, disease organisms and predatory animals). Present study was focused on using edible fish as predator of mosquito larvae. Experimental results revealed that, edible fish have tremendous potential to be used as larvivorous predator of mosquito. It was further found that, larvivorous fish (Gambusia Affinis), used in this study preferred live larvae when compared with commercial food. The rate of consumption was between 180 to 190 larvae per fish per day, and fish preferred live larvae (65.72%) over dead larval stuff (37.14%). Another aim of the study was to determine the effect of light and dark periods on larvae consumption and it revealed that 88.75% of larvae were eaten in the presence of light and only 51.25% in dark by the mosquito fish. In micro-field condition, out of 500 larvae, only 13 (2.6 %) larvae were left, whereas rest of the larvae were consumed by the fish. The study suggests the larvivorous fish to be tried as biological control agent for mosquitoes.