Synchrotron Tomography of a Boreal Forest Bark Beetle

摘要

The tomography beamline X27A at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory was used to study the destructive spruce bark beetle, Dendroctonus rufipennis (Kirby). The x-ray computed microtomography (CMT) instrument is equipped with filtered "white" x-ray beam with energy of around 18 keV and, alternatively, a monochromatic beam with energy of around 4 to 14 keV and a 1% band pass. The instrument records microtomographic volumes with 10~8 to 10~9 voxels and spatial resolution down to about 3-micron voxels. Three-dimensional image reconstruction provides density and spatial information about solid heterogeneous forms. We have demonstrated that CMT images can be used to nondestructively characterize the internal structure of the beetle -symbiont fungal complex as part of an effort to understand the role of these organisms in the devastation of spruce forests throughout south-central Alaska.