Larvicidal Effect of (Ehrenberg, 1830) on Mosquito Larvae, and Morphological Changes under Induced Environmental Conditions.

Development of microbiota assemblage usually occurs in all most all domestic and peridomestic mosquito breeding habitats. There may be parasitic, epibiont, pathogenic, or even predatory species among this biota, and to investigate their potential against the mosquito population is worth studying. This may contribute to formulating environmentally agreeable approaches in controlling mosquitoes which is a current need. spp. is a peritrich ciliate, and its trophont stage has become epibiont to certain biota. Further, their existence in seasonal water bodies that dry off during drought in tropical weather conditions is not known. Therefore, the potential of the larvicidal effect of on different species of mosquito larvae was studied. We found that causes the 100% death of the third instar larvae of (Giles, 1901) within 48 h of exposure. In contrast to that, this species did not cause any mortality to (Skuse, 1894) and (Linnaeus in Hasselquist, 1762) mosquito larvae in repeated trials. The dynamics of polymorphism of was studied under induced environmental conditions. remained as trophont stage throughout at room temperature (25 ± 2°C). When the temperature was reduced to 6°C, settled in the cyst stage. Evidently, is a good biocontrol agent of species mosquito larvae, and they able to overcome drought periods in cyst forms. The findings of this study would be considered as the first step for a new avenue to work on environmentally agreeable manner in reducing the spp. mosquito populations.