University of Texas, Tyler, 3900 University Blvd., Tyler, TX 75799, USA.
J Insect Sci. 2011;11:78. doi: 10.1673/031.011.7801.
A red pigment is contained in the wing veins of the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae). This insect is the main vector of the plant-pathogenic bacterium Xylella fastidiosa Wells (Xanthomonadales: Xanthomonadaceae), the causal agent of Pierce's disease of grapevines. Over the course of the H. vitripennis lifespan, the red pigment darkens and eventually becomes brown/black in color. These pigments are believed to be pheomelanin and eumelanin, respectively. The age of H. vitripennis can be determined by calculating the amount of red pigment found in the wings by analyzing high resolution wing photographs with image analysis software. In this study, a standard curve for the age determination of H. vitripennis was developed using laboratory-reared insects of known ages varying from 1 to 60 days. The impact of three environmental conditions on these readings was also investigated and found to have little effect on the age determination, and could be easily accounted for. Finally, field collected insects from several Central Texas vineyards were successfully analyzed for age determination suggesting that the annually reported influx of H. vitripennis was composed almost entirely of older insects.
玻璃叶蝉（半翅目：叶蝉科）的翅膀脉中有红色素。这种昆虫是植物病原细菌李痘病黄单胞菌（Xanthomonadales：Xanthomonadaceae）的主要载体，是葡萄藤皮尔逊氏病的病原体。在玻璃叶蝉的生命周期中，红色素会变暗，最终变成棕色/黑色。这些色素分别被认为是真黑素和黑色素。通过分析高分辨率的翅膀照片并用图像分析软件进行分析，可以计算出翅膀中红色素的含量，从而确定玻璃叶蝉的年龄。在这项研究中，使用从 1 到 60 天不等的已知年龄的实验室饲养昆虫开发了一个用于确定玻璃叶蝉年龄的标准曲线。还研究了三种环境条件对这些读数的影响，发现它们对年龄确定几乎没有影响，而且很容易解释。最后，成功地对来自德克萨斯州中部几个葡萄园的田间采集的昆虫进行了年龄分析，表明每年报告的玻璃叶蝉大量涌入几乎完全由年龄较大的昆虫组成。
