ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2009
The evolution of eyes and visually guided behaviour.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 81 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
81 citing papers in PubMed, 248 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Article
- A single-cell atlas of the bobtail squid visual and nervous system highlights molecular principles of convergent evolution.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Timely neurogenesis drives the transition from nematic to crystalline nuclear packing during retinal morphogenesis.Science advances · 2025Article
- Will I stay or will I go? Eye morphology predicts individual migratory propensity in a partial migrant.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Bioluminescence and environmental light drive the visual evolution of deep-sea shrimp (Oplophoroidea).Communications biology · 2025Article
- A possible origin of the inverted vertebrate retina revealed by physical modeling.Journal of biological physics · 2024Article
- Figure-ground segmentation based on motion in the archerfish.Animal cognition · 2024Article
- Ancestral photoreceptor diversity as the basis of visual behaviour.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Review
- Interspecies Retinal Diversity and Optic Nerve Anatomy in Odontocetes.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Opsin Gene Duplication in Lepidoptera: Retrotransposition, Sex Linkage, and Gene Expression.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- What is it like to be a choanoflagellate? Sensation, processing and behavior in the closest unicellular relatives of animals.Animal cognition · 2023Review
- Ultrastructural Characteristics and Synaptic Connectivity of Photoreceptors in the Simplex Retina of Little Skate (eNeuro · 2023Article
- Deep Diversity: Extensive Variation in the Components of Complex Visual Systems across Animals.Cells · 2022Review
- The limits of convergence in the collective behavior of competing marine taxa.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- The neuroecology of the water-to-land transition and the evolution of the vertebrate brain.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Ultrastructure of cerebral eyes in Oweniidae and Chaetopteridae (Annelida) - implications for the evolution of eyes in Annelida.Zoological letters · 2022Article
- EyeVolve, a modular PYTHON based model for simulating developmental eye type diversification.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
21 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The morphology and molecular mechanisms of animal photoreceptor cells and eyes reveal a complex pattern of duplications and co-option of genetic modules, leading to a number of different light-sensitive systems that share many components, in which clear-cut homologies are rare. On the basis of molecular and morphological findings, I discuss the functional requirements for vision and how these have constrained the evolution of eyes. The fact that natural selection on eyes acts through the consequences of visually guided behaviour leads to a concept of task-punctuated evolution, where sensory systems evolve by a sequential acquisition of sensory tasks. I identify four key innovations that, one after the other, paved the way for the evolution of efficient eyes. These innovations are (i) efficient photopigments, (ii) directionality through screening pigment, (iii) photoreceptor membrane folding, and (iv) focusing optics. A corresponding evolutionary sequence is suggested, starting at non-directional monitoring of ambient luminance and leading to comparisons of luminances within a scene, first by a scanning mode and later by parallel spatial channels in imaging eyes.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.