Buckhold B
University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
Life Sci Space Res. 1969;7:77-83.
Interesting physiological and somatic effects of space flight have been observed in a variety of insects on board Biosatellite II. Wasps, beetles and fruit flies have demonstrated positive effects of the space flight alone or in combination with irradiation. In the flour beetle, Tribolium confusum, the incidence of a developmental wing abnormality was measured. This abnormality, which mimics the mutation known as "split", was significantly increased in beetles which were flown as young pupae, pre-irradiated with X rays to bring them into their sensitive dose range and gamma irradiated during flight. Wing abnormalities increased from a ground value of 29.9 per cent to a value of 44.8 per cent. The length of the pupal period was also measured. Although there was a significant increase of the flight pupal period over that of the ground control, the most likely explanation seems to be the temperature drop of the flight samples between separation and retrieval of the flight capsule. In the parasitic wasp, Habrobracon juglandis, flown in the adult stage, several interesting results have been obtained in terms of reproductive performance, life span and enzyme activity. Reproductive performance, measured by the average number of eggs laid/female/day, was unaffected by flight for control unirradiated wasps. However, for females X rayed with 2000 R prior to flight, the characteristic depression of egg-laying at 10 days post-irradiation was negligible in the flight animals. A more pronounced effect was observed in those females which received the chronic 2667 R gamma ray dose in flight; egg production actually progressively increased to twice the level of the ground sample. It was observed that males were disoriented in their mating behavior for 2 days after the flight. When the dose level data was pooled, the life span of females was found to be significantly longer in the flight group. Upon analysis of the activity of the enzyme, xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH), adult flight males were found to have a significantly decreased XDH activity compared with ground controls. No significant difference was found between female F1 progeny of flight and ground males. XDH activity was also analyzed in F1 progeny of Drosophila melanogaster, orbited as adults and larvae. For the F1 male progeny of adult males, there was a significantly depressed average XDH activity compared with ground controls for the highest irradiation dose. For F1 male progeny of flight larvae, there was a statistically decrease of XDH activity only between the off-spring of irradiated flight and ground larvae. Further somatic changes were observed in Drosophila larvae, in which chromosome aberrations were studied.
在“生物卫星二号”上，人们观察到太空飞行对多种昆虫产生了有趣的生理和躯体影响。黄蜂、甲虫和果蝇已证明太空飞行单独或与辐射相结合具有积极作用。在杂拟谷盗这种面粉甲虫中，对一种发育性翅异常的发生率进行了测量。这种异常类似于被称为“分裂”的突变，在作为年轻蛹飞行、预先用X射线辐照使其进入敏感剂量范围并在飞行期间接受γ射线辐照的甲虫中显著增加。翅异常从地面值的29.9%增加到了44.8%。还测量了蛹期的长度。虽然飞行蛹期比地面对照显著延长，但最可能的解释似乎是飞行样本在飞行舱分离和回收之间的温度下降。在成年期飞行的寄生黄蜂哈氏肿腿蜂中，在繁殖性能、寿命和酶活性方面获得了一些有趣的结果。对于未受辐照的对照黄蜂，以每天每只雌性产卵的平均数量衡量的繁殖性能不受飞行影响。然而，对于飞行前用2000伦琴X射线辐照的雌性黄蜂，辐照后10天产卵的典型抑制在飞行动物中可忽略不计。在飞行中接受慢性2667伦琴γ射线剂量的那些雌性黄蜂中观察到了更明显的影响；产卵量实际上逐渐增加到地面样本水平的两倍。据观察，雄性在飞行后两天的交配行为中迷失方向。当汇总剂量水平数据时，发现飞行组雌性的寿命显著更长。在分析黄嘌呤脱氢酶（XDH）的活性时，发现成年飞行雄性的XDH活性与地面对照相比显著降低。飞行雄性和地面雄性的雌性F1后代之间未发现显著差异。还对成年和幼虫阶段在轨道飞行的黑腹果蝇的F1后代中的XDH活性进行了分析。对于成年雄性的F1雄性后代，在最高辐照剂量下，与地面对照相比，平均XDH活性显著降低。对于飞行幼虫的F1雄性后代，仅在辐照飞行幼虫和地面幼虫的后代之间，XDH活性有统计学上的降低。在果蝇幼虫中观察到了进一步的躯体变化，其中对染色体畸变进行了研究。
