A high-throughput multispectral imaging system for museum specimens

Wei-Ping Chan; Richard Rabideau Childers; Sorcha Ashe; Cheng-Chia Tsai; Caroline Elson; Kirsten J Keleher; Rachel L Hawkins Sipe; Crystal A Maier; Andrei Sourakov; Lawrence F Gall; Gary D Bernard; Edward R Soucy; Nanfang Yu; Naomi E Pierce

doi:10.1038/s42003-022-04282-z

A high-throughput multispectral imaging system for museum specimens

Commun Biol. 2022 Dec 1;5(1):1318. doi: 10.1038/s42003-022-04282-z.

Authors

Wei-Ping Chan^#^{1

2}, Richard Rabideau Childers^#^{3

4}, Sorcha Ashe^#³, Cheng-Chia Tsai⁵, Caroline Elson³, Kirsten J Keleher^{6

7}, Rachel L Hawkins Sipe⁴, Crystal A Maier⁴, Andrei Sourakov⁸, Lawrence F Gall⁹, Gary D Bernard¹⁰, Edward R Soucy¹¹, Nanfang Yu⁵, Naomi E Pierce^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. chanw@g.harvard.edu.
² Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. chanw@g.harvard.edu.
³ Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁴ Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵ Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
⁶ Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
⁷ Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
⁸ McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
⁹ Computer Systems Office & Division of Entomology, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹¹ Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
¹² Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. npierce@oeb.harvard.edu.
¹³ Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. npierce@oeb.harvard.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

We present an economical imaging system with integrated hardware and software to capture multispectral images of Lepidoptera with high efficiency. This method facilitates the comparison of colors and shapes among species at fine and broad taxonomic scales and may be adapted for other insect orders with greater three-dimensionality. Our system can image both the dorsal and ventral sides of pinned specimens. Together with our processing pipeline, the descriptive data can be used to systematically investigate multispectral colors and shapes based on full-wing reconstruction and a universally applicable ground plan that objectively quantifies wing patterns for species with different wing shapes (including tails) and venation systems. Basic morphological measurements, such as body length, thorax width, and antenna size are automatically generated. This system can increase exponentially the amount and quality of trait data extracted from museum specimens.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Museums*
Phenotype
Records*
Software

Associated data

Dryad/10.5061/dryad.37pvmcvp5