Contribution to BeeFunc: wing area data

Then, they were coloured white using the method described by Lozier et al. (2021). [Lozier, J.D., Parsons, Z.M., Rachoki, L., Jackson, J.M., Pimsler, M.L., Oyen, K.J., et al. (2021). Divergence in Body Mass, Wing Loading, and Population Structure Reveals Species-Specific and Potentially Adaptive Trait Variation Across Elevations in Montane Bumble Bees.

Insect Systematics and Diversity, 5, 3.].A black background was applied to the rest of the image to provide contrast with the wings. Finally, the image was converted to 8-bit greyscale in ImageJ, following the method of Sorojsrisom et al. (2022). This limited the image information to 256 shades and a threshold was applied to precisely define what was considered a ‘wing’ (white) and ‘background’ (black).

[ Sorojsrisom, E.S., Krumm, J.L. & Trillo, P.A. (2022). Measuring Size and Area of Digitized Specimens using ImageJ.]. The surface area was then measured in ImageJ.