Wakakuwa Motohiro, Kurasawa Masumi, Giurfa Martin, Arikawa Kentaro
Graduate School of Integrated Science, Yokohama City University, 22-2 Seto, Yokohama 236-0027, Japan.
Naturwissenschaften. 2005 Oct;92(10):464-7. doi: 10.1007/s00114-005-0018-5. Epub 2005 Oct 28.
The honeybee compound eye is equipped with ultraviolet, blue, and green receptors, which form the physiological basis of a trichromatic color vision system. We studied the distribution of the spectral receptors by localizing the three mRNAs encoding the opsins of the ultraviolet-, blue- and green-absorbing visual pigments. The expression patterns of the three opsin mRNAs demonstrated that three distinct types ommatidia exist, refuting the common assumption that the ommatidia composing the bee compound eye contain identical sets of spectral receptors. We found that type I ommatidia contain one ultraviolet and one blue receptor, type II ommatidia contain two ultraviolet receptors, and type III ommatidia have two blue receptors. All the three ommatidial types contain six green receptors. The ommatidia appear to be distributed rather randomly over the retina. The ratio of type I, II, and III ommatidia was about 44:46:10. Type III ommatidia appeared to be slightly more frequent (18%) in the anterior part of the ventral region of the eye. Retinal heterogeneity and ommatidial randomness, first clearly demonstrated in butterflies, seems to be a common design principle of the eyes of insects.
蜜蜂的复眼配备有紫外线、蓝色和绿色感受器，这些感受器构成了三色视觉系统的生理基础。我们通过定位编码紫外线、蓝色和绿色吸收视觉色素视蛋白的三种信使核糖核酸来研究光谱感受器的分布。三种视蛋白信使核糖核酸的表达模式表明存在三种不同类型的小眼，这驳斥了一个普遍的假设，即构成蜜蜂复眼的小眼包含相同的光谱感受器组合。我们发现，I型小眼包含一个紫外线感受器和一个蓝色感受器，II型小眼包含两个紫外线感受器，III型小眼有两个蓝色感受器。所有这三种小眼类型都包含六个绿色感受器。小眼似乎在视网膜上分布得相当随机。I型、II型和III型小眼的比例约为44:46:10。III型小眼在眼睛腹侧区域的前部似乎稍微更常见一些（18%）。视网膜异质性和小眼随机性首先在蝴蝶中得到明确证明，似乎是昆虫眼睛的一种常见设计原则。
