ArticleMolecular ecology2015
Variable light environments induce plastic spectral tuning by regional opsin coexpression in the African cichlid fish, Metriaclima zebra.
Article in Molecular ecology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Turning Red to Green Repeatedly: Ancestral LWS Duplications Drive Convergent Visual Tuning in Teleost Fishes.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Graded opsin co-expression along the butterfly retina fine tunes the spectral sensitivity of a colour-opponent cell across the visual field.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Article
- Seeing in the Deep: Evolution of the Opsin Gene Expression in Bermin Crater Lake Cichlids.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- A standardized nomenclature for the rods and cones of the vertebrate retina.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Long-wavelength-sensitive (lws) opsin gene expression, foraging and visual communication in coral reef fishes.Molecular ecology · 2023Article
- East African cichlid fishes.EvoDevo · 2023Review
- Developing and adult reef fish show rapid light-induced plasticity in their visual system.Molecular ecology · 2023Article
- Seeing Picasso: an investigation into the visual system of the triggerfish Rhinecanthus aculeatus.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- Molecular Evolution of Ultraviolet Visual Opsins and Spectral Tuning of Photoreceptors in Anemonefishes (Amphiprioninae).Genome biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Influence of lighting environment on social preferences in sticklebacks from two different photic habitats. II. Shoaling and mate preferences of lab-bred fishes.Current zoology · 2021Article
- Influence of lighting environment on social preferences in sticklebacks from two different photic habitats. I. mate preferences of wild-caught females.Current zoology · 2021Article
- Axes of visual adaptation in the ecologically diverse family Cichlidae.Seminars in cell & developmental biology · 2020Review
- The visual pigment xenopsin is widespread in protostome eyes and impacts the view on eye evolution.eLife · 2020Article
- Visual pigment evolution in Characiformes: The dynamic interplay of teleost whole-genome duplication, surviving opsins and spectral tuning.Molecular ecology · 2020Article
- Exceptional diversity of opsin expression patterns inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Testing sensory drive speciation in cichlid fish: Linking light conditions to opsin expression, opsin genotype and female mate preference.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2020Article
- Effects of different light conditions on the retinal microstructure and ultrastructure of Dicentrarchus labrax larvae.Fish physiology and biochemistry · 2020Article
- Diurnal variation in opsin expression and common housekeeping genes necessitates comprehensive normalization methods for quantitative real-time PCR analyses.Molecular ecology resources · 2019Article
- Reverting ontogeny: rapid phenotypic plasticity of colour vision in cichlid fish.Royal Society open science · 2019Article
- Genomics of Developmental Plasticity in Animals.Frontiers in genetics · 2019Review
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Critical behaviours such as predation and mate choice often depend on vision. Visual systems are sensitive to the spectrum of light in their environment, which can vary extensively both within and among habitats. Evolutionary changes in spectral sensitivity contribute to divergence and speciation. Spectral sensitivity of the retina is primarily determined by visual pigments, which are opsin proteins bound to a chromophore. We recently discovered that photoreceptors in different regions of the retina, which view objects against distinct environmental backgrounds, coexpress different pairs of opsins in an African cichlid fish, Metriaclima zebra. This coexpression tunes the sensitivity of the retinal regions to the corresponding backgrounds and may aid in detection of dark objects, such as predators. Although intraretinal regionalization of spectral sensitivity in many animals correlates with their light environments, it is unknown whether variation in the light environment induces developmentally plastic alterations of intraretinal sensitivity regions. Here, we demonstrate with fluorescent in situ hybridization and qPCR that the spectrum and angle of environmental light both influence the development of spectral sensitivity regions by altering the distribution and level of opsins across the retina. Normally, M. zebra coexpresses LWS opsin with RH2Aα opsin in double cones of the ventral but not the dorsal retina. However, when illuminated from below throughout development, adult M. zebra coexpressed LWS and RH2Aα in double cones both dorsally and ventrally. Thus, environmental background spectra alter the spectral sensitivity pattern that develops across the retina, potentially influencing behaviours and related evolutionary processes such as courtship and speciation.
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