The Insect Eye: From Foundational Biology to Modern Applications in Pest Management

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this review, authors provide a systematic review of the structure, development, molecular mechanisms, and functions of the insect visual system, along with its applications in pest management. The content is comprehensive, supported by detailed references, and demonstrates strong academic value and practical potential. However, there are areas for improvement regarding logical coherence, precision in certain expressions, figure citations, and formatting consistency. The following specific review comments are provided.

 

Major issues:

1, In section 2, “Developmental and evolutionary mechanisms shaping insect visual system diversity”. The description of evolutionary aspects is somewhat insufficient. Content on the evolution of insect vision should be added, and it would be better to include a figure of evolutionary tree of the insect visual system.

2, Section 4. “Functional Specialization” and Section 5. “Vision and Behavior” contain overlapping and redundant content, with some sections unclear in their classification. It is recommended to reorganize the content to avoid repetition with the preceding section.

3, The paper lacks a distinct discussion section that identifies limitations of existing research, proposes future research directions, and addresses the challenges and prospects of applying visual technologies to pest control.

4, Figure 3 (A, B, C, D) is not referenced in the text; its location should be clearly indicated within the text.

 

Minor issues:

1, line 163-1666: “In contrast, the eyes ……placode-like epithelia. Nevertheless, ommatidial ……differences in tissue origin [6].” This reads awkwardly and lacks logical coherence with the preceding content. Please revise.

2, line 171: “opposition” and ‘apposition’ are used interchangeably; they should be standardized as “apposition.”

2, line 254: “DAG” and “IP3”, Use the full name on first mention.

3, line 263: “PRC”, this isn't the first time it's appeared, so the full name isn't necessary.

4, Part 4: Functional Specialization. The logical coherence between paragraphs needs improvement. For example, from line 375 to 431, the paragraphs lack logical connection.

Lines 503–507: This section contains some repetition with the preceding section (light traps). It is recommended to merge or reorganize the content to enhance logical coherence.

5, line 567-568: “These impressive similarities strongly suggest that evolution has discovered the most efficient methods to process visual information。” I don't understand what this means. Please rephrase it.

6, In the References section, formatting should be consistent, with scientific names in italics. Additionally, thesis titles should be standardized, as in references 70 and 94–96. 

Author Response

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Reviewer 1 for the time and effort dedicated to reviewing our manuscript. We found the comments extremely constructive and helpful. We have addressed each point carefully, restructuring significant parts of the paper and adding new figures and tables to improve clarity and scientific depth.

Please see the attachment for the point-by-point response to the specific comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors present a review of current knowledge on insect visual systems, development, and evolution. The topic of the manuscript is of interest. However, the main issue is that the text lacks an overview of the adaptive and evolutionary aspects of insect eyes across different orders. There are frequent references to a few very common species, which do not provide a complete picture of the diversity of eye function and morphology in Insecta.

To improve the manuscript, I suggest including the missing information by considering all orders and adaptations to different environmental conditions. As there is a large amount of information, it may be helpful to summarize it in a table to provide the reader with a comprehensive overview. This aspect should be carefully addressed to ensure the review is thorough.

Additional suggestions

L77-86 lack references

L94-114 the description of stemmata should be improved adding more information see for ex.

Gilbert, C. (1994). Form and function of stemmata in larvae of holometabolous insects. Annual Review of Entomology, 39(1), 323-349.

and other more recent studies such as

Fischer, S., Laue, M., Mueller, C. H., Meinertzhagen, I. A., & Pohl, H. (2021). Ultrastructural 3D reconstruction of the smallest known insect photoreceptors: The stemmata of a first instar larva of Strepsiptera (Hexapoda). Arthropod Structure & Development, 62, 101055.

Haug, C., Braig, F., Linhart, S. J., Briggs, D. E., Melzer, R. R., Caballero, A., ... & Haug, J. T. (2025). Cretaceous lacewing larvae with binocular vision demonstrate the convergent evolution of sophisticated simple eyes. Insect Science.

Beutel, R. G., Goczał, J., & Pohl, H. (2025). Evolutionary adaptations in larvae of holometabola. Annual Review of Entomology, 71.

Giglio, A., Vommaro, M. L., Agostino, R. G., Lo, L. K., & Donato, S. (2022). Exploring compound eyes in adults of four coleopteran species using synchrotron X-ray phase-contrast microtomography (SR-PhC Micro-CT). Life, 12(5), 741.

Paukner, D., Wildenberg, G. A., Badalamente, G. S., Littlewood, P. B., Kronforst, M. R., Palmer, S. E., & Kasthuri, N. (2024). Synchrotron‐source micro‐x‐ray computed tomography for examining butterfly eyes. Ecology and Evolution, 14(4), e11137.

L141 section2_The title suggests that this section provides an overview of the evolution of vision and the development mechanisms known to date in different orders. However, the text contains very little information and should be significantly expanded, with the evolutionary part separated from the part on embryonic development and metamorphosis into two sub-paragraphs. A table can be used to summarize all the bibliographic data for the species that have been studied.

L149-153 The reference n20 is not appropriate. It does not match the concept expressed in the text.

L247 section 3_ the information in this section is also incomplete

L273 revise “The visual system of the bumblebee….”

Author Response

We are grateful to Reviewer 2 for the thorough assessment and the excellent suggestions regarding the bibliography and the manuscript structure. We have accepted all the suggestions, significantly expanding the section on stemmata with the recommended references and restructuring Section 2 to separate evolutionary aspects from developmental ones. We also included new tables to provide the requested comprehensive overview.

Please see the attachment for the point-by-point response to the specific comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

the ms has been improved, even if in a very short time