BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY EVALUATION OF OLEIC ACID-NICOTINE EMULSIONS OIL/WATER AGAINST <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i>

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of the O/W emulsion of oleic acid-nicotine stabilized with Tween 80® on itsacute and chronic insecticidal activity in Drosophila melanogaster. The oleic acid-nicotine emulsions acutebioactivity show a median lethal time (LT50 = 13 ± 3 minutes) significantly higher compared with thatobtained with nicotine in aqueous solution (LT50 = 7 ± 1 minutes). Oleic acid-nicotine emulsion lowbioactivity present high correlation with the percentage of nicotine encapsulated in emulsion droplets.The chronic bioactivity is assessed in the life cycle of D. melanogaster where diminution in ovipositionis taken as evidence of repellency.