Sexual dimorphism in body size has been observed for many insect species, while whether dimorphism influences the flight performance for closely related insects or between the sexes of conspecifics however has seldom been examined.

We collected the nymphs of three species of cicadas, Cryptotympana atrata, Meimuna mongolica, and Platypleura kaempferi in their eclosion or as adults that had just shed their exoskeletons and were drying their wings on tree trunks or branches at the Nanjing Forestry University campus. Because the sample size of C. atrata from the Nanjing Forestry campus was too small, we collected more C. atrata adults that were resting on trees using a metal rod tipped with sticky flour at another site that is 13.7 km away from the Nanjing Forestry University campus.

The fresh body mass and body length were measured, and the two pairs of wings were surgically removed with a scalpel and then scanned using a photo scanner. We extracted the planar coordinates of wing boundaries and then calculated wing areas using the computer programs that were first developed to calculate leaf area in prior studies. Total wing area per individual is equal to the sum of wing areas of the pairs of forewings and hindwings.

In this data set, we provided the data of wing size (including forewing and hindwing length, width and area) and those of body size (including body length and mass) of the three cicada species. The wing data of males and females were distinguished.

We caught 395 individuals of three cicada species (24 of Cryptotympana atrata [Ca], 243 of Meimuna mongolica [Mm], and 128 of Platypleura kaempferi [Pk]) at the Nanjing Forestry University campus (32°4'41''N, 118°48'34''E) from 6 to 25 July 2021. Cicada sampling was carried out at night (19:40 – 21:40). We collected nymphs emerging from the soil and adults that had just shed their nymphal exoskeletons and were drying their wings on trunks or branches. Captured insects were held at ca. 25°C for one night to allow wings of all the cicadas to completely expand. The sex of each cicada was recorded. Next, we detached the forewings with a scalpel. However, because the sample size of Ca (24) from the Nanjing Forestry campus was too small, we collected more Ca adults that were resting on trees using a metal rod tipped with sticky flour, from 15 to 26 August 2021 at another site (32°6'25''N, 118°57'3''E; nearby Nanjing University Xianlin campus) 13.7 km away from the Nanjing Forestry University campus.  

Cicada forewings were scanned at a resolution of 600 dpi using an Epson photo scanner (Epson V550, Batam, Indonesia). Then, the scanned images were converted into black-white images and saved as bitmap images at the resolution of 600 dpi using Adobe Photoshop CS2 (version 9.0; https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html). We used the M-file of MATLAB (version 2009a; https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html) developed by Shi et al. (2018) to extract the planar coordinates of the wing outlines. The script based on R (version 3.6.1; R Core Team, 2019) developed by Su et al. (2020) was used to calculate wing area, length, and width. We defined the maximum distance from the wing base to wing tip as wing length, and the maximum distance of any two point on the edge perpendicular to the wing length axis as maximum wing width.

References:

R Core Team. (2019). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for statistical computing. https://www.r-project.org/.

Shi, P., Ratkowsky, D. A., Li, Y., Zhang, L., Lin, S., & Gielis, J. (2018). A general leaf area geometric formula exists for plants – Evidence from the simplified Gielis equation. Forests, 9, 714. https://doi.org/10.3390/f9110714.

Su, J., Niklas, K. J., Huang, W., Yu, X., Yang, Y., & Shi, P. (2019) Lamina shape does not correlate with lamina surface area: An analysis based on the simplified Gielis equation. Global Ecology and Conservation, 19, e00666. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00666.