Computational analysis of size, shape and structure of insect wings

Mary K Salcedo; Jordan Hoffmann; Seth Donoughe; L Mahadevan

doi:10.1242/bio.040774

Computational analysis of size, shape and structure of insect wings

Biol Open. 2019 Oct 18;8(10):bio040774. doi: 10.1242/bio.040774.

Authors

Mary K Salcedo¹, Jordan Hoffmann², Seth Donoughe³, L Mahadevan^{4

2

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
² School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
³ Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
⁴ Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Lmahadev@g.harvard.edu.
⁵ Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
⁶ Kavli Institute for Nanobio Science and Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

Abstract

The size, shape and structure of insect wings are intimately linked to their ability to fly. However, there are few systematic studies of the variability of the natural patterns in wing morphology across insects. We have assembled a dataset of 789 insect wings with representatives from 25 families and performed a comprehensive computational analysis of their morphology using topological and geometric notions in terms of (i) wing size and contour shape, (ii) vein topology, and (iii) shape and distribution of wing membrane domains. These morphospaces are complementary to existing methods for quantitatively characterizing wing morphology and are likely to be useful for investigating wing function and evolution. This Methods and Techniques paper is accompanied by a set of computational tools for open use.This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.

Keywords: Image quantification; Phenotyping; Wing morphology.