Abstract
Fipronil is a broad potent insecticide that belongs to the phenylpyrazole chemical family. Its action mode acting in the presynaptic and postsynaptic blocking the chlorine ions by the neurotransmitters GABA. It is considered highly toxic, and in some countries, its use has been prohibited. The objective of this review is to perform a scientometric analysis for global measurement of the research on the insecticide fipronil. All information in this study was searched in the Web of Science (WoS) database in December 2021. The search was carried using the term “fipronil.” Thus, 2362 studies were selected. Most selected articles showed toxicity effects of fipronil on non-target organisms, analytical methods to detect the insecticide, environmental degradation processes, and efficiency in reducing insects through its use. The H index for this dataset was 91. The cooperation network of the authors among countries showed the USA as the most notorious, with 30.6% of studies, followed by China (15.7%) and Brazil (10.9%). There are many studies on the toxicity of fipronil in bees, forms of degradation, and effectiveness of this insecticide. The present work presents suggestions pointed out in the articles for further research and highlights the importance of studies involving fipronil, as well as studies of alternative pest control.








Data availability
All data supporting this study are extracted from published papers and are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) — Brazil, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq — National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) — Brazil, and the Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR) and to Fernanda Moreira Delavy. The authors would like to thank the Multiuser Core Laboratory of Biological Analysis and Molecular Biology (BioMol) at Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR), Campus Dois Vizinhos.
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The access to data bases was funded by Brazilian government — Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES).
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Sandrieli Gonçalves: data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; resources; software; visualization; writing — original draft. Marina W. Vasconcelos: data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; resources; software; validation; visualization; writing — original draft. Thais Fernandes Mendonça Motta: supervision; writing — review and editing. Juliana Marceli Hofma Lopes: data curation, visualization, writing — review and editing. Larissa Juliane Guimaraes: data curation, visualization, writing — original draft. Karina S.B. Miglioranza: supervision; writing — review and editing. Nédia C. Ghisi: conceptualization; methodology, project administration; resources; funding acquisition; supervision; writing — review and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Gonçalves, S., Vasconcelos, M.W., Mota, T.F.M. et al. Identifying global trends and gaps in research on pesticide fipronil: a scientometric review. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 79111–79125 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21135-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21135-8