Efficiency of different methods of EMS application for the induction of dominant lethals in germ cells of medfly, Ceratitis capitata (Wied.), males

EMS (ethyl methanesulfonate) fed to adult Mediterranean fruit flies in 10% sugar water was found to be the most effective treatment for the induction of dominant lethals in male germ cells. This application procedure showed a direct regression between the log concentration of EMS and the probit F1 egg lethality, provided a reasonably uniform uptake of EMS by the exposed males, and was non-toxic at the relevant concentrations. The same application procedure, but employing 1% sugar water, was also non-toxic to the treated males but resulted in large variations in the rate of uptake of the mutagen, thus producing no clear correlation between the concentration of EMS and dominant lethality. Injection of adult males with EMS caused high parental mortality and caused a severe reduction in mating propensity at concentrations below that causing dominant lethality.

Dominant lethality was observed in all treatment procedures as a reduction in egg hatchability, whereas adult emergence from surviving pupae was never affected. A small, but significant, reduction in pupal production from hatched eggs was observed in the treatment involving “egg/larval feeding” and in all adult treatments, but in no case could this be correlated to the concentration of EMS.

The high levels of radioactivity, observed in the testes of males treated with ¹⁴C-labelled EMS through feeding of adults (10% sugar), in spermathecase of females mated to these males and in resultant F1 eggs, suggest that a major portion of the label reaching the testes was associated with the sperm itself rather than with other parts of the testes or the seminal fluid.