A systematic literature review of the efficacy of acaricidal plants, plant extracts, and tick assays used against dog-associated ticks

Abstract

Dogs are an integral part of many households and important companion animals to humans. Their inquisitive and exploratory behaviour leads them to roam natural environments, making them susceptible to tick infestations that can also be transmitted to humans. To control these ticks, various plant extracts have been evaluated for their efficacy as acaricides and/or repellents against various species. This study was aimed at consolidating the data that has been published in terms of the plant species that have shown efficacy against ticks that parasitize dogs, it further evaluated the methods used in preparing these formulations. A keyword-Boolean strategy was created to extract a total of n = 103 articles that were included in the study. The leading countries in terms of the global distribution of acaricidal plant investigation outputs were Brazil at 23 %, India at 17 % and Turkey at 7 %. A total of n = 13 tick species were used in the evaluated studies. The dog tick Rhipicephalus sanguineus was the most widely used for efficacy testing at 43 % frequency. The Lamiaceae plant family had the highest frequency for reported use across the evaluated studies at 18 %, this was followed by the family Asteraceae at 11 %. Adult immersion test, larval packet test and larval immersion test were the most preferred assays for acaricidal efficacy studies. Leaves were the most preferred plant parts utilized for crude plant metabolites extraction (n = 43), while essential oils were the most highly reported extracts (n = 60). Lastly, extracts were primarily subjected to Gas chromatography for analysis of the plant compounds (n = 38). This paper gives the current global status of potential acaricidal plants utilized against ticks parasitizing dogs.