Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Ontogenetic Adaptations in the Visual Systems of Deep-Sea Crustaceans

ORCID

0000-0002-9329-2414

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

ISSN

0962-8436

Publication Date

4-5-2017

Keywords

Deep-sea, Ontogenetic, Vision, Crustaceans

Abstract

For all visually competent organisms, the driving force behind the adaptation of photoreceptors involves obtaining the best balance of resolution to sensitivity in the prevailing light regime, as an increase in sensitivity often results in a decrease in resolution. A number of marine species have an additional problem to deal with, in that the juvenile stages live in relatively brightly lit shallow (100–200 m depth) waters, whereas the adult stages have daytime depths of more than 600 m, where little downwelling light remains. Here, I present the results of electrophysiological analyses of the temporal resolution and irradiance sensitivity of juvenile and adult stages of two species of ontogenetically migrating crustaceans (Gnathophausia ingens and Systellaspis debilis) that must deal with dramatically different light environments and temperatures during their life histories. The results demonstrate that there are significant effects of temperature on temporal resolution, which help to optimize the visual systems of the two life-history stages for their respective light environments.

This article is part of the themed issue ‘Vision in dim light’.

DOI

10.1098/rstb.2016.0071

Volume

372

Issue

1717

First Page

1

Last Page

8

Comments

©2017 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved

Additional Comments

NSF grant #: IBN-0343871

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Peer Reviewed

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