I am currently planning to measure the compound eye of dozens of closely related insect species and wanted to get some sense of the best metrics. As a start, I had planned to count ommatidia. I also wanted to generate a metric related to % of head the compound eye covers, and to comparatively measure the optic lobe relative to head size. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Cheers!
Please do you mean phylogenetically or morphologically (phenotypically) similar insects species?
Hello Ian:
The number of ommatidia, position of compound eyes and size are important morphological characters to separate different genera and even species. Take a look at this work we made with whiteflies using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) for differente species and genera.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263346947_Morphological_and_Mitochondrial_DNA_Marker_Analyses_of_Whiteflies_HomopteraAleyrodidae_from_Colombia
Data Morphological and Mitochondrial DNA Marker Analyses of White...
Thank you Dmitry. I was envisioning morphological (morphometric?) comparisons across the genus of interest, and because I have not observed a commonly adopted method for this comparison, I figured I would ask the scientific community for advice on the matter!
Thank you Luis for the paper, I was hoping to employ a similar SEM strategy to compare the ommatidia of each species. Have you ever compared the structure of the optic lobes for your whiteflies and observed any differences there as well? Maybe differences in relative size or connectivity? I was hoping to address differences in size of the optic lobe in comparison to the antennal lobe to finish this comparative species project of mine.
Hello Ian:
Yes, we observed differences in relative size and connectivity between the upper and lower optic lobe. For instance in Bemisia tabaci the upper and lower compound eye was connected by one ommatidia, two in Bemisa tuberculata, three in Aleurotrachelus socialis and none in Trialeurodes socialis. This was a constant character present in both sexes of each species.
Hi Ian,
If you want to compare possible visual performances (angular resolution, photon capture), you need to measure other properties, as interommatidial angles, corneal apertures and acceptance angles.
Some variables can be obtained in histological sections, but others need specific instruments.
The relative optic lobe to head size would probably not much vary across species of the same genus, unless that they posses very different eyes or very different biology (e.g. nocturnal vs. diurnal).
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