Skip to main content
Entomology 2023 Main banner
Bayer
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Presentation Icons
In-Person
In-Person
On-Demand
On-Demand
Student Competition
Student Competition
Poster
Poster
Ticketed Event
Ticketed Event
Back
ViewAttendees 6

10-Minute Paper

Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity

SysEB: Systematics, Biodiversity, and Taxonomy

Digitizing insect morphology: Recent advances in X-ray imaging and data analysis

Sunday, November 5, 2023
2:06 PM – 2:18 PM ET
Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Chesapeake 7-9
In-Person

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Thomas van de Kamp

    Scientist
    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Baden-Wurttemberg, GER

    • Co-Author(s)

  • EE

    Evan P. Economo

    Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
    Onna-son, Okinawa, Japan

  • DH

    Daniel Hänschke

    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

  • EH

    Elias Hamann

    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

  • JH

    Jenny Hein

    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

  • FH

    Francisco Hita Garcia

    Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
    Onna-son, Okinawa, Japan

  • JK

    Julian Katzke (he/him/his)

    PhD Student
    Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
    Onna-son, Okinawa, Japan

  • RS

    Rebecca Spiecker

    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Karlsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

  • MZ

    Marcus Zuber

    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

  • TB

    Tilo Baumbach

    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

X-ray imaging provides fascinating insights into insect morphology. Our serial microtomography setup is among the fastest in the world, thus facilitating scanning of large numbers of insects in a single experiment. Our most ambitious large-scale endeavor so far is the ANTSCAN project, a collaboration of KIT and Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) with partners from museums all over the world aiming to rapidly capture phenotypes across the ant tree of life. In the near future, a new micro-CT setup will enable fully automatic scanning of batches with up to 2000 insects without human intervention.

A recent development is a unique setup for X-ray laminography, a special form of micro-CT dedicated to laterally extended objects. By employing this technique, we were able to gain unprecedented insights into insect compression fossils.

Further methodical developments are driven by the needs to increase dose-efficiency of X-ray imaging, as required for in vivo studies. In this context, we developed a dedicated imaging system based on so-called Bragg crystal optics. Its potential was recently demonstrated by visualizing the behavior of living parasitoid Trichogramma wasps within their host eggs during the emergence phase of about an hour.

Scanning thousands of insects results in huge amounts of data that need to be processed an analyzed. Here, a very promising solution is the employment of deep neural networks (DNNs) that can be trained for automatic segmentation of morphological characters. Semi-automatic segmentation using established tools like Biomedisa (https://biomedisa.org) are well-suited to create high-quality training data for these DNNs.