Protective effects of three Artemisia essential oils against Callosobruchus maculatus and Bruchus rufimanus (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) and the extended side-effects on their natural enemies Faten Titouhi a, b , Moez Amri c , Chokri Messaoud d , Soumaya Haouel a, e , Sondes Youssfi a, f , Amira Cherif a, b , Jouda Mediouni Ben Jem ^ aa a, * a Laboratory of Biotechnology Applied to Agriculture, National Agricultural Research Institute of Tunisia (INRAT), University of Carthage, Tunisia b National Agronomy Institute of Tunisia (INAT), University of Carthage, Tunisia c Regional Field Crop Research Center of Beja (CRRGC), Tunisia d Laboratory of Plant Biotechnology, National Institute of Applied Science and Technology (INSAT), University of Carthage, Tunisia e Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University Tunis El Manar, Tunisia f Higher Agronomic Institute of Chott Mariem, University of Sousse, Tunisia article info Article history: Received 31 August 2016 Received in revised form 13 February 2017 Accepted 27 February 2017 Keywords: Callosobruchus maculatus Bruchus rufimanus Essential oil Parasitoids abstract This research aimed to find plant essential oils with a strong fumigant-specific toxicity effects against Callosobruchus maculatus and Bruchus rufimanus, but which have lower side effects on their parasitoids wasps Dinarmus basalis and Triaspis luteipes. For that, the essential oils of Artemisia herba-alba, A. campestris and A. absinthium were investigated for their chemical composition using GC and GCeMS analysis and were used in a manner that combined exposure to their essential oils with parasitoids releases. Essential oils were assessed for their direct fumigant toxicity against both bruchid beetles and for their residual effects on parasitism rates and pests offspring control. The introduction of D. basalis and T. luteipes adults were done 6 days after the oil application. The results showed that A. campestris essential oil can be considered compatible with the natural enemies for controlling stored food legume beetles. When the parasitoids D. basalis and T. luteipes were released six days after the application of A. campestris oil, the parasitism rates reached 13.6% and 80.3% for C. maculatus and B. rufimanus respectively. Moreover, 26.6% of C. maculatus offspring have emerged, while for B. rufimanus a complete lack of offspring was recorded. Adults of D. basalis were more sus- ceptible to oils vapours than adults of T. luteipes. The release of parasitoids could better be combined with essential oils of A. campestris, as this oil had more pronounced effects on the beetles than on their parasitoids, in particular for the case of B. rufimanus and T. luteipes. © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction Currently, stored-product pest control strategies tend to emphasize the non-chemical aspects of pest control with the judicious use of pesticides. In this context, various researches demonstrated the efficacy of parasitoids and predators in control- ling storage pests (Abd El-Aziz, 2011). Certain parasitoids and predators of storage pests are notable for their potential as bio- logical control agents (Flinn and Scholler, 2012). Besides, essential oils from several medicinal and aromatic plants have been recently qualified as replacement alternatives to synthetic pesticides due to the multitude of their biocide activities (Mediouni-Ben Jem^ aa, 2014; Villaverde et al., 2016). Among damaging insects, seed beetles in the family Bruchidae are recognized as being pests in stored legume seeds especially in developing countries (Southgate, 1979). Up to 20 species have been * Corresponding author. Laboratory of Biotechnology Applied to Agriculture, INRAT, Rue Hedi Karray, 2080, Ariana, Tunis, Tunisia. E-mail addresses: joudamediouni@lycos.com, j_mediouni@hotmail.fr (J. Mediouni Ben Jem^ aa). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Stored Products Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jspr http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jspr.2017.02.007 0022-474X/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Journal of Stored Products Research 72 (2017) 11e20