scholarly journals Vision using multiple distinct rod opsins in deep-sea fishes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzana Musilova ◽  
Fabio Cortesi ◽  
Michael Matschiner ◽  
Wayne I. L. Davies ◽  
Sara M. Stieb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Dim Light

AbstractVertebrate vision is accomplished through a set of light-sensitive photopigments, which are located in the photoreceptors of the retina and consist of a visual opsin protein bound to a chromophore. In dim-light, vertebrates generally rely upon a single rod opsin (RH1) for obtaining visual information. By inspecting 101 fish genomes, we found that three deep-sea teleost lineages have independently expanded their RH1 gene repertoires. Amongst these, the silver spinyfin (Diretmus argenteus Johnson 1863) stands out as having the highest number of visual opsins known for animals to date (2 cone and 38 rod opsins). Spinyfins simultaneously express up to 14 RH1s encoding for photopigments with different peak spectral sensitivities (λmax=448-513 nm) that cover the range of the residual daylight, as well as the bioluminescence spectrum present in the deep-sea. Our findings present novel molecular and functional evidence for the recurrent evolution of multiple rod opsin-based vision in vertebrates.SHORT ABSTRACTContrary to the single rod opsin used by most vertebrates, some fishes use multiple rod opsins for vision in the dimly lit deep-sea.

scholarly journals Vision using multiple distinct rod opsins in deep-sea fishes

Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 364 (6440) ◽  
pp. 588-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzana Musilova ◽  
Fabio Cortesi ◽  
Michael Matschiner ◽  
Wayne I. L. Davies ◽  
Jagdish Suresh Patel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Dim Light ◽  
Cone Opsins

Vertebrate vision is accomplished through light-sensitive photopigments consisting of an opsin protein bound to a chromophore. In dim light, vertebrates generally rely on a single rod opsin [rhodopsin 1 (RH1)] for obtaining visual information. By inspecting 101 fish genomes, we found that three deep-sea teleost lineages have independently expanded their RH1 gene repertoires. Among these, the silver spinyfin (Diretmus argenteus) stands out as having the highest number of visual opsins in vertebrates (two cone opsins and 38 rod opsins). Spinyfins express up to 14 RH1s (including the most blueshifted rod photopigments known), which cover the range of the residual daylight as well as the bioluminescence spectrum present in the deep sea. Our findings present molecular and functional evidence for the recurrent evolution of multiple rod opsin–based vision in vertebrates.

scholarly journals Ontogenetic adaptations in the visual systems of deep-sea crustaceans

2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1717) ◽  
pp. 20160071 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara M. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Resolution ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Light Regime ◽  
Life History Stages ◽  
Visual Systems ◽  
Juvenile Stages ◽  
Dim Light ◽  
Effects Of Temperature

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’.

scholarly journals The visual ecology of Holocentridae, a nocturnal coral reef fish family with a deep-sea-like multibank retina

2020 ◽  
pp. jeb.233098
Author(s):  
Fanny de Busserolles ◽  
Fabio Cortesi ◽  
Lily Fogg ◽  
Sara M. Stieb ◽  
Martin Luehrmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual System ◽  
Reef Fish ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Colour Vision ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Light Sensitivity ◽  
Fish Family ◽  
Visual Systems ◽  
Retinal Topography ◽  
Dim Light

The visual systems of teleost fishes usually match their habitats and lifestyles. Since coral reefs are bright and colourful environments, the visual systems of their diurnal inhabitants have been more extensively studied than those of nocturnal species. In order to fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a detailed investigation of the visual system of the nocturnal reef fish family Holocentridae. Results showed that the visual system of holocentrids is well adapted to their nocturnal lifestyle with a rod-dominated retina. Surprisingly, rods in all species were arranged into 6-17 well-defined banks, a feature most commonly found in deep-sea fishes, that may increase the light sensitivity of the eye and/or allow colour discrimination in dim-light. Holocentrids also have the potential for dichromatic colour vision during the day with the presence of at least two spectrally different cone types: single cones expressing the blue-sensitive SWS2A gene, and double cones expressing one or two green-sensitive RH2 genes. Some differences were observed between the two subfamilies, with Holocentrinae (squirrelfish) having a slightly more developed photopic visual system than Myripristinae (soldierfish). Moreover, retinal topography of both ganglion cells and cone photoreceptors showed specific patterns for each cell type, likely highlighting different visual demands at different times of the day, such as feeding. Overall, their well-developed scotopic visual systems and the ease of catching and maintaining holocentrids in aquaria, make them ideal models to investigate teleost dim-light vision and more particularly shed light on the function of the multibank retina and its potential for dim-light colour vision.

scholarly journals Glow on Sharks: State of the Art on Bioluminescence Research

Oceans ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 822-842
Author(s):  
Laurent Duchatelet ◽  
Julien M. Claes ◽  
Jérôme Delroisse ◽  
Patrick Flammang ◽  
Jérôme Mallefet
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Control Mechanism ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Histological Structure ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Physiological Control ◽  
Ecological Functions ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Dim Light

This review presents a synthesis of shark bioluminescence knowledge. Up to date, bioluminescent sharks are found only in Squaliformes, and specifically in Etmopteridae, Dalatiidae and Somniosidae families. The state-of-the-art knowledge about the evolution, ecological functions, histological structure, the associated squamation and physiological control of the photogenic organs of these elusive deep-sea sharks is presented. Special focus is given to their unique and singular hormonal luminescence control mechanism. In this context, the implication of the photophore-associated extraocular photoreception—which complements the visual adaptations of bioluminescent sharks to perceive residual downwelling light and luminescence in dim light environment—in the hormonally based luminescence control is depicted in detail. Similarities and differences between shark families are highlighted and support the hypothesis of an evolutionary unique ancestral appearance of luminescence in elasmobranchs. Finally, potential areas for future research on shark luminescence are presented.

scholarly journals Retinal Morphology and Visual Specializations in Three Species of Chimaeras, the Deep-Sea R. pacifica and C. lignaria, and the Vertical Migrator C. milii (Holocephali)

2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 47-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Garza-Gisholt ◽  
Nathan S. Hart ◽  
Shaun P. Collin
Keyword(s):  
Color Vision ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Ganglion Cells ◽  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Visual Sensitivity ◽  
Segment Length ◽  
Lower Sensitivity ◽  
Elephant Shark ◽  
Mesopelagic Zone

The majority of holocephalans live in the mesopelagic zone of the deep ocean, where there is little or no sunlight, but some species migrate to brightly lit shallow waters to reproduce. This study compares the retinal morphology of two species of deep-sea chimaeras, the Pacific spookfish (Rhinochimaera pacifica) and the Carpenter’s chimaera (Chimaera lignaria), with the elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii), a vertical migrator that lives in the mesopelagic zone but migrates to shallow water to reproduce. The two deep-sea chimaera species possess pure rod retinae with long photoreceptor outer segments that might serve to increase visual sensitivity. In contrast, the retina of the elephant shark possesses rods, with an outer-segment length significantly shorter (a mean of 34 µm) than in the deep-sea species, and cones, and therefore the potential for color vision. The retinal ganglion cell distribution closely follows that of the photoreceptor populations in all three species, but there is a lower peak density of these cells in both deep-sea species (215–275 cells/mm2 vs. 769 cells/mm2 in the elephant shark), which represents a significant increase in the convergence of visual information (summation ratio) from photoreceptors to ganglion cells. It is evident that the eyes of deep-sea chimaeras have increased sensitivity to detect objects under low levels of light, but at the expense of both resolution and the capacity for color vision. In contrast, the elephant shark has a lower sensitivity, but the potential for color discrimination and a higher visual acuity.

scholarly journals Visual information processing for deep-sea visual monitoring system

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Chunyan Ma ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Yujie Li ◽  
Xinliang Tian ◽  
Yichuan Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Monitoring System ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Information Processing ◽  
Visual Monitoring ◽  
Visual Monitoring System

scholarly journals Low-Light Image Enhancement Based on Generative Adversarial Network

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nandhini Abirami R. ◽  
Durai Raj Vincent P. M.
Keyword(s):  
Image Enhancement ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Low Light ◽  
Generative Adversarial Network ◽  
Light Image ◽  
Adversarial Network ◽  
Benchmark Datasets ◽  
Dim Light ◽  
Effective Network

Image enhancement is considered to be one of the complex tasks in image processing. When the images are captured under dim light, the quality of the images degrades due to low visibility degenerating the vision-based algorithms’ performance that is built for very good quality images with better visibility. After the emergence of a deep neural network number of methods has been put forward to improve images captured under low light. But, the results shown by existing low-light enhancement methods are not satisfactory because of the lack of effective network structures. A low-light image enhancement technique (LIMET) with a fine-tuned conditional generative adversarial network is presented in this paper. The proposed approach employs two discriminators to acquire a semantic meaning that imposes the obtained results to be realistic and natural. Finally, the proposed approach is evaluated with benchmark datasets. The experimental results highlight that the presented approach attains state-of-the-performance when compared to existing methods. The models’ performance is assessed using Visual Information Fidelitysse, which assesses the generated image’s quality over the degraded input. VIF obtained for different datasets using the proposed approach are 0.709123 for LIME dataset, 0.849982 for DICM dataset, 0.619342 for MEF dataset.

The Neural Basis of Dim-Light Vision in Echolocating Bats

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (Suppl. 1-4) ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Hoffmann ◽  
Alexandra Bley ◽  
Mariana Matthes ◽  
Uwe Firzlaff ◽  
Harald Luksch
Keyword(s):  
Visual Information ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Imaging System ◽  
Spatial Summation ◽  
Spatial Sampling ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Neural Adaptations ◽  
Visual Spatial ◽  
Dim Light ◽  
Dim Light Vision

Echolocating bats evolved a sophisticated biosonar imaging system that allows for a life in dim-light habitats. However, especially for far-range operations such as homing, bats can support biosonar by vision. Large eyes and a retina that mainly consists of rods are assumed to be the optical adjustments that enable bats to use visual information at low light levels. In addition to optical mechanisms, many nocturnal animals evolved neural adaptations such as elongated integration times or enlarged spatial sampling areas to further increase the sensitivity of their visual system by temporal or spatial summation of visual information. The neural mechanisms that underlie the visual capabilities of echolocating bats have, however, so far not been investigated. To shed light on spatial and temporal response characteristics of visual neurons in an echolocating bat, Phyllostomus discolor, we recorded extracellular multiunit activity in the retino-recipient superficial layers of the superior colliculus (SC). We discovered that response latencies of these neurons were generally in the mammalian range, whereas neural spatial sampling areas were unusually large compared to those measured in the SC of other mammals. From this we suggest that echolocating bats likely use spatial but not temporal summation of visual input to improve visual performance under dim-light conditions. Furthermore, we hypothesize that bats compensate for the loss of visual spatial precision, which is a byproduct of spatial summation, by integration of spatial information provided by both the visual and the biosonar systems. Given that knowledge about neural adaptations to dim-light vision is mainly based on studies done in non-mammalian species, our novel data provide a valuable contribution to the field and demonstrate the suitability of echolocating bats as a nocturnal animal model to study the neurophysiological aspects of dim-light vision.

scholarly journals Nocturnal insects use optic flow for flight control

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Baird ◽  
Eva Kreiss ◽  
William Wcislo ◽  
Eric Warrant ◽  
Marie Dacke
Keyword(s):  
Flight Control ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Flight Tunnel ◽  
Cluttered Environments ◽  
Flying Insects ◽  
Dim Light ◽  
Control Flight

To avoid collisions when navigating through cluttered environments, flying insects must control their flight so that their sensory systems have time to detect obstacles and avoid them. To do this, day-active insects rely primarily on the pattern of apparent motion generated on the retina during flight (optic flow). However, many flying insects are active at night, when obtaining reliable visual information for flight control presents much more of a challenge. To assess whether nocturnal flying insects also rely on optic flow cues to control flight in dim light, we recorded flights of the nocturnal neotropical sweat bee, Megalopta genalis , flying along an experimental tunnel when: (i) the visual texture on each wall generated strong horizontal (front-to-back) optic flow cues, (ii) the texture on only one wall generated these cues, and (iii) horizontal optic flow cues were removed from both walls. We find that Megalopta increase their groundspeed when horizontal motion cues in the tunnel are reduced (conditions (ii) and (iii)). However, differences in the amount of horizontal optic flow on each wall of the tunnel (condition (ii)) do not affect the centred position of the bee within the flight tunnel. To better understand the behavioural response of Megalopta , we repeated the experiments on day-active bumble-bees ( Bombus terrestris ). Overall, our findings demonstrate that despite the limitations imposed by dim light, Megalopta —like their day-active relatives—rely heavily on vision to control flight, but that they use visual cues in a different manner from diurnal insects.

scholarly journals Living in the dark does not mean a blind life: bird and mammal visual communication in dim light

2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1717) ◽  
pp. 20160064 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Penteriani ◽  
María del Mar Delgado
Keyword(s):  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Communication ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Visual Signals ◽  
Visual Signal ◽  
Chemical Signalling ◽  
Coloration Pattern ◽  
Dim Light ◽  
Visual Signalling ◽  
Review Current

For many years, it was believed that bird and mammal communication ‘in the dark of the night’ relied exclusively on vocal and chemical signalling. However, in recent decades, several case studies have conveyed the idea that the nocturnal world is rich in visual information. Clearly, a visual signal needs a source of light to work, but diurnal light (twilight included, i.e. any light directly dependent on the sun) is not the only source of luminosity on this planet. Actually, moonlight represents a powerful source of illumination that cannot be neglected from the perspective of visual communication. White patches of feathers and fur on a dark background have the potential to be used to communicate with conspecifics and heterospecifics in dim light across different contexts and for a variety of reasons. Here: (i) we review current knowledge on visual signalling in crepuscular and nocturnal birds and mammals; and (ii) we also present some possible cases of birds and mammals that, due to the characteristics of their feather and fur coloration pattern, might use visual signals in dim light. Visual signalling in nocturnal animals is still an emerging field and, to date, it has received less attention than many other means of communication, including visual communication under daylight. For this reason, many questions remain unanswered and, sometimes, even unasked. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Vision in dim light’.

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