TRANSFER OF SPERM BY IRRADIATED HELIOTHIS VIRESCENS (LEPIDOPTERA: NOCTUIDAE) AND RELATIONSHIP TO FECUNDITY

Abstract

Untreated male tobacco budworms, Heliothis virescens (F.), fail to transfer sperm in about 15–20% of their matings. Tobacco budworms sterilized by 45 krad significantly fail to transfer sperm in about 50% of their matings. Females that received a spermatophore but had no sperm in their spermathecae produced the same numbers of eggs as virgin females. Females with sperm in their spermathecae laid the same numbers of eggs, whether the sperm came from irradiated or untreated males.Irradiated males did not transfer sperm to the spermathecae of the female because sperm were not incorporated into the spermatophore. The failure to incorporate sperm into the spermatophore occurred because the sperm in the male reproductive system did not move from the duplex to the simplex area where the spermatophore is formed. Males irradiated after mating were able to transfer sperm in a second mating as well as untreated males.