The molecular origin and evolution of dim-light vision in mammals

Evolution ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (11) ◽  
pp. 2995-3003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constanze Bickelmann ◽  
James M. Morrow ◽  
Jing Du ◽  
Ryan K. Schott ◽  
Ilke van Hazel ◽  
...  
1963 ◽  
Vol 205 (5) ◽  
pp. 927-940 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Schiff

The anatomy of the eye of Squilla mantis and the geometrical optics derived from it are briefly described. The shape and size of the electroretinogram (ERG) are dependent on a) position where it is picked up, b) the light intensity, and c) the change of intensity. Single-fiber analysis confirms the results obtained by the anatomy and the ERG of the eye. Frequency of response of a single secondary fiber to intensity changes of light is proportional to the derivate dI/dt ( I = intensity; t = time). The Squilla sees a moving object as the sum of the intensity changes caused by that object, varied in time and space. The eyes have a maximum of sensitivity for light of 535–555 mµ wavelength, and a second maximum in the near ultraviolet light, the latter partly seen as green fluorescence due to an eye pigment. Anatomy, physiology, and the environmental conditions have been combined to explain the vision of this animal, adapted to his life in the blue-violet twilight of the deeper Mediterranean sea.


2016 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Debono ◽  
Bing Xie ◽  
Aude Violette ◽  
Rudy Fourmy ◽  
Marc Jaeger ◽  
...  

eLife ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Asteriti ◽  
Sten Grillner ◽  
Lorenzo Cangiano

Vertebrates acquired dim-light vision when an ancestral cone evolved into the rod photoreceptor at an unknown stage preceding the last common ancestor of extant jawed vertebrates (∼420 million years ago Ma). The jawless lampreys provide a unique opportunity to constrain the timing of this advance, as their line diverged ∼505 Ma and later displayed high-morphological stability. We recorded with patch electrodes the inner segment photovoltages and with suction electrodes the outer segment photocurrents of Lampetra fluviatilis retinal photoreceptors. Several key functional features of jawed vertebrate rods are present in their phylogenetically homologous photoreceptors in lamprey: crucially, the efficient amplification of the effect of single photons, measured by multiple parameters, and the flow of rod signals into cones. These results make convergent evolution in the jawless and jawed vertebrate lines unlikely and indicate an early origin of rods, implying strong selective pressure toward dim-light vision in Cambrian ecosystems.


2018 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 160-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anett Karl ◽  
Silke Agte ◽  
Astrid Zayas-Santiago ◽  
Felix N. Makarov ◽  
Yomarie Rivera ◽  
...  

2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. R318-R319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Pisani ◽  
Samantha M. Mohun ◽  
Simon R. Harris ◽  
James O. McInerney ◽  
Mark Wilkinson

2011 ◽  
Vol 214 (8) ◽  
pp. 1283-1293 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. P. Berry ◽  
W. T. Wcislo ◽  
E. J. Warrant
Keyword(s):  

eLife ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianni M Castiglione ◽  
Belinda SW Chang

Trade-offs between protein stability and activity can restrict access to evolutionary trajectories, but widespread epistasis may facilitate indirect routes to adaptation. This may be enhanced by natural environmental variation, but in multicellular organisms this process is poorly understood. We investigated a paradoxical trajectory taken during the evolution of tetrapod dim-light vision, where in the rod visual pigment rhodopsin, E122 was fixed 350 million years ago, a residue associated with increased active-state (MII) stability but greatly diminished rod photosensitivity. Here, we demonstrate that high MII stability could have likely evolved without E122, but instead, selection appears to have entrenched E122 in tetrapods via epistatic interactions with nearby coevolving sites. In fishes by contrast, selection may have exploited these epistatic effects to explore alternative trajectories, but via indirect routes with low MII stability. Our results suggest that within tetrapods, E122 and high MII stability cannot be sacrificed—not even for improvements to rod photosensitivity.


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