Origin and fate of germ cells in male and female embryos ofHaplothrips verbasci (Osborn) (Insecta, Thysanoptera, Phlaeothripidae)

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Comparison of germ cells in male and female embryos of the arrhenotokous thrips, Haplothrips verbasci, yields the following observations: A mean of 11 cleavage energids enter the posterior pole plasm of the egg after the sixth cleavage division and apparently become pole cells when they take up polar granules in their cytoplasm. The cells proliferate asynchronously prior to and during anatrepsis to yield a mean of 36 germ cells in male embryos and 31 in females. Visible sexual differentiation of germ cells begins during germ band elongation and is completed shortly after the appearance of appendages. Female germ cells are larger than those of the males and may contain two nucleoli. The germ cells separate into two groups just before katatrepsis and mesodermal cells collect about these to form the primary epithelial sheaths of the gonads and the primordia of the gonoducts shortly after revolution is completed. Each gonad contains a mean of 13 germ cells in male embryos and 7 in females – a number that persists until mitosis resumes after hatching. During ketatrepsis, a mean of 11 germ cells in male embryos and 2.6 in females fail to be enclosed within the gonads, become dispersed in the yolk and perhaps transform into vitellophages. Germ cell development in H. verbasci embryos resembles similar events taking place in psocid embryos, providing additional evidence for a close phylogenetic relationship between Thysanoptera and Psocoptera.
Keywords