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The diversity of invertebrate visual opsins spanning Protostomia, Deuterostomia, and Cnidaria. Dev Biol 2022; 492:187-199. [PMID: 36272560 DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2022.10.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2021] [Revised: 09/28/2022] [Accepted: 10/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Across eumetazoans, the ability to perceive and respond to visual stimuli is largely mediated by opsins, a family of proteins belonging to the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) superclass. Lineage-specific gains and losses led to a striking diversity in the numbers, types, and spectral sensitivities conferred by visual opsin gene expression. Here, we review the diversity of visual opsins and differences in opsin gene expression from well-studied protostome, invertebrate deuterostome, and cnidarian groups. We discuss the functional significance of opsin expression differences and spectral tuning among lineages. In some cases, opsin evolution has been linked to the detection of relevant visual signals, including sexually selected color traits and host plant features. In other instances, variation in opsins has not been directly linked to functional or ecological differences. Overall, the array of opsin expression patterns and sensitivities across invertebrate lineages highlight the diversity of opsins in the eumetazoan ancestor and the labile nature of opsins over evolutionary time.
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Bank S, Bradler S. A second view on the evolution of flight in stick and leaf insects (Phasmatodea). BMC Ecol Evol 2022; 22:62. [PMID: 35549660 PMCID: PMC9097326 DOI: 10.1186/s12862-022-02018-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2022] [Accepted: 04/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The re-evolution of complex characters is generally considered impossible, yet, studies of recent years have provided several examples of phenotypic reversals shown to violate Dollo's law. Along these lines, the regain of wings in stick and leaf insects (Phasmatodea) was hypothesised to have occurred several times independently after an ancestral loss, a scenario controversially discussed among evolutionary biologists due to overestimation of the potential for trait reacquisition as well as to the lack of taxonomic data. RESULTS We revisited the recovery of wings by reconstructing a phylogeny based on a comprehensive taxon sample of over 500 representative phasmatodean species to infer the evolutionary history of wings. We additionally explored the presence of ocelli, the photoreceptive organs used for flight stabilisation in winged insects, which might provide further information for interpreting flight evolution. Our findings support an ancestral loss of wings and that the ancestors of most major lineages were wingless. While the evolution of ocelli was estimated to be dependent on the presence of (fully-developed) wings, ocelli are nevertheless absent in the majority of all examined winged species and only appear in the members of few subordinate clades, albeit winged and volant taxa are found in every euphasmatodean lineage. CONCLUSION In this study, we explored the evolutionary history of wings in Phasmatodea and demonstrate that the disjunct distribution of ocelli substantiates the hypothesis on their regain and thus on trait reacquisition in general. Evidence from the fossil record as well as future studies focussing on the underlying genetic mechanisms are needed to validate our findings and to further assess the evolutionary process of phenotypic reversals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Bank
- Department of Animal Evolution and Biodiversity, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Sven Bradler
- Department of Animal Evolution and Biodiversity, Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
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Penmetcha B, Ogawa Y, Ryan LA, Hart NS, Narendra A. Ocellar spatial vision in Myrmecia ants. J Exp Biol 2021; 224:272224. [PMID: 34542631 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.242948] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2021] [Accepted: 09/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
In addition to compound eyes, insects possess simple eyes known as ocelli. Input from the ocelli modulates optomotor responses, flight-time initiation, and phototactic responses - behaviours that are mediated predominantly by the compound eyes. In this study, using pattern electroretinography (pERG), we investigated the contribution of the compound eyes to ocellar spatial vision in the diurnal Australian bull ant Myrmecia tarsata by measuring the contrast sensitivity and spatial resolving power of the ocellar second-order neurons under various occlusion conditions. Furthermore, in four species of Myrmecia ants active at different times of the day, and in European honeybee Apis mellifera, we characterized the ocellar visual properties when both visual systems were available. Among the ants, we found that the time of activity had no significant effect on ocellar spatial vision. Comparing day-active ants and the honeybee, we did not find any significant effect of locomotion on ocellar spatial vision. In M. tarsata, when the compound eyes were occluded, the amplitude of the pERG signal from the ocelli was reduced 3 times compared with conditions when the compound eyes were available. The signal from the compound eyes maintained the maximum contrast sensitivity of the ocelli as 13 (7.7%), and the spatial resolving power as 0.29 cycles deg-1. We conclude that ocellar spatial vison improves significantly with input from the compound eyes, with a noticeably larger improvement in contrast sensitivity than in spatial resolving power.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bhavana Penmetcha
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
| | - Yuri Ogawa
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.,Centre for Neuroscience, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia
| | - Laura A Ryan
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
| | - Nathan S Hart
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
| | - Ajay Narendra
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
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Tong M, Yu X, Shao J, Shao Z, Li W, Lin W. Automated measuring method based on Machine learning for optomotor response in mice. Neurocomputing 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neucom.2020.08.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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Jones BM, Seymoure BM, Comi TJ, Loew ER. Species and sex differences in eye morphometry and visual responsivity of two crepuscular sweat bee species ( Megalopta spp., Hymenoptera: Halictidae). Biol J Linn Soc Lond 2020. [DOI: 10.1093/biolinnean/blaa064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Visually dependent dim-light foraging has evolved repeatedly, broadening the ecological niches of some species. Many dim-light foraging lineages evolved from diurnal ancestors, requiring immense visual sensitivity increases to compensate for light levels a billion times dimmer than daylight. Some taxa, such as bees, are anatomically constrained by apposition compound eyes, which function well in daylight but not in starlight. Even with this constraint, the bee genus Megalopta has incredibly sensitive eyes, foraging in light levels up to nine orders of magnitude dimmer than diurnal relatives. Despite many behavioural studies, variation in visual sensitivity and eye morphometry has not been investigated within and across Megalopta species. Here we quantify external eye morphology (corneal area and facet size) for sympatric species of Megalopta, M. genalis and M. amoena, which forage during twilight. We use electroretinograms to show that males, despite being smaller than females, have equivalent visual sensitivity and increased retinal responsivity. Although males have relatively larger eyes compared with females, corneal area and facet size were not correlated with retinal responsivity, suggesting that males have additional non-morphological adaptations to increase retinal responsiveness. These findings provide the foundation for future work into the neural and physiological mechanisms that interface with morphology to influence visual sensitivity, with implications for understanding niche exploitation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Beryl M Jones
- Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama
| | - Brett M Seymoure
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama
- Living Earth Collaborative, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA
- Sound and Light Ecology Team, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
| | - Troy J Comi
- Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Ellis R Loew
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
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How do flies keep clean? Head grooming in Drosophila. J ETHOL 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s10164-019-00635-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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Nuutila J, Honkanen AE, Heimonen K, Weckström M. The effect of vertical extent of stimuli on cockroach optomotor response. J Exp Biol 2020:jeb.204768. [PMID: 34005539 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.204768] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2019] [Accepted: 03/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Using tethered American cockroaches walking on a trackball in a spherical virtual reality environment, we tested optomotor responses to horizontally moving black-and-white gratings of different vertical extent under six different light intensities. We found that shortening the vertical extent of the wide-field stimulus grating within a light level weakened response strength, reduced average velocity, and decreased angular walking distance. Optomotor responses with the vertically shortened stimuli persisted down to light intensity levels of 0.05 lx. Response latency seems to be independent of both the height of the stimulus and light intensity. The optomotor response started saturating at the light intensity of 5 lx, where the shortest behaviourally significant stimulus was 1°. This indicates that the number of vertical ommatidial rows needed to elicit an optomotor response at 5 lx and above is in the single digits, maybe even just one. Our behavioural results encourage further inquiry into the interplay of light intensity and stimulus size in insect dim-light vision.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juha Nuutila
- Nano and Molecular Systems Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, FIN-90014, Oulu, Finland
| | - Anna E Honkanen
- Lund Vision Group, Department of Biology, Lund University, 22362 Lund, Sweden
| | - Kyösti Heimonen
- Nano and Molecular Systems Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, FIN-90014, Oulu, Finland
| | - Matti Weckström
- Nano and Molecular Systems Research Unit, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, FIN-90014, Oulu, Finland
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Diversity and common themes in the organization of ocelli in Hymenoptera, Odonata and Diptera. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 2018; 204:505-517. [PMID: 29582137 DOI: 10.1007/s00359-018-1258-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2018] [Revised: 03/14/2018] [Accepted: 03/20/2018] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
Abstract
We show in a comparative analysis that distinct retinal specializations in insect ocelli are much more common than previously realized and that the rhabdom organization of ocellar photoreceptors is extremely diverse. Hymenoptera, Odonata and Diptera show prominent equatorial fovea-like indentations of the ocellar retinae, where distal receptor endings are furthest removed from the lens surface and receptor densities are highest. In contrast, rhabdomere arrangements are very diverse across insect groups: in Hymenoptera, with some exceptions, pairs of ocellar retinular cells form sheet-like rhabdoms that form elongated rectangular shapes in cross-section, with highly aligned microvilli directions perpendicular to the long axis of cross-sections. This arrangement makes most ocellar retinular cells in Hymenoptera sensitive to the direction of polarized light. In dragonflies, triplets of retinular cells form a y-shaped fused rhabdom with microvilli directions oriented at 60° to each other. In Dipteran ocellar retinular cells microvilli directions are randomised, which destroys polarization sensitivity. We suggest that the differences in ocellar organization between insect groups may reflect the different head attitude control systems that have evolved in these insect groups, but possibly also differences in the mode of locomotion and in the need for celestial compass information.
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