Drosophila sex determination of wing type

Use of Drosophila melanogaster tra2ts2 in the study of sexual dimorphism of wing form

Average image of Cy female wing
Average image of Cy female control wings from tra2ts2.
Computed with tpsSuper, superimposition program of James Rohlf from raw wing images.

A project of Joe Kunkel and Brian Bettencourt.

The subtle difference between male and female wings of Drosophila melanogaster can be detected in individual animals. This promises to allow an approach to studying the genetics of subtle morphological differences. The following plots were produced by PLANNAR, a plannar landmark geometry program written by Joe Kunkel. An R approach to analysis of this data is in development.


Confidence ellipses of 13 wingvein landmarks of male and female Drosophila

Isolate landmark 5
Landmark ellipses numbered, with number 5 marked for examination of male and female Drosophila differences.

How can these confidence ellipses be used to descriminate between males and females?

We use discriminant function analysis to identify the sexual phenotype of individual wings.  The confidence ellipses of landmarks of reference samples of males and females are used to establish discriminant functions for male and female.  Each test wing gets a score for being male and a score for being female.  The highest score predicts the sex of the wing.  Such scores have been 95-100% accurate in several independent tests.  Please review our manuscript.

Back to: | Kunkel Home Page| Biology Dept.| UMass Home Page|

Page maintained by Joe Kunkel, joe@bio.umass.edu. Copyright(c) 1997. Created: 95/10/28 Updated: 97/04/19