Saleh Ziabari Omid, Shingleton Alexander W
Department of Biology, Lake Forest College.
Department of Biology, Lake Forest College;
J Vis Exp. 2017 Jun 1(124):55732. doi: 10.3791/55732.
Pigmentation is a morphologically simple but highly variable trait that often has adaptive significance. It has served extensively as a model for understanding the development and evolution of morphological phenotypes. Abdominal pigmentation in Drosophila melanogaster has been particularly useful, allowing researchers to identify the loci that underlie inter- and intraspecific variations in morphology. Hitherto, however, D. melanogaster abdominal pigmentation has been largely assayed qualitatively, through scoring, rather than quantitatively, which limits the forms of statistical analysis that can be applied to pigmentation data. This work describes a new methodology that allows for the quantification of various aspects of the abdominal pigmentation pattern of adult D. melanogaster. The protocol includes specimen mounting, image capture, data extraction, and analysis. All the software used for image capture and analysis feature macros written for open-source image analysis. The advantage of this approach is the ability to precisely measure pigmentation traits using a methodology that is highly reproducible across different imaging systems. While the technique has been used to measure variation in the tergal pigmentation patterns of adult D. melanogaster, the methodology is flexible and broadly applicable to pigmentation patterns in myriad different organisms.
色素沉着是一种形态上简单但高度可变的性状，通常具有适应性意义。它已广泛用作理解形态表型的发育和进化的模型。黑腹果蝇的腹部色素沉着特别有用，使研究人员能够确定形态种间和种内变异的基础基因座。然而，迄今为止，黑腹果蝇的腹部色素沉着主要通过评分进行定性分析，而非定量分析，这限制了可应用于色素沉着数据的统计分析形式。这项工作描述了一种新方法，可对成年黑腹果蝇腹部色素沉着模式的各个方面进行量化。该方案包括标本固定、图像采集、数据提取和分析。所有用于图像采集和分析的软件都有针对开源图像分析编写的宏。这种方法的优点是能够使用在不同成像系统中高度可重复的方法精确测量色素沉着特征。虽然该技术已用于测量成年黑腹果蝇背板色素沉着模式的变异，但该方法具有灵活性，广泛适用于无数不同生物体的色素沉着模式。
