Rutowski R L, Gislén Lars, Warrant Eric J
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1501, USA.
Arthropod Struct Dev. 2009 Mar;38(2):91-100. doi: 10.1016/j.asd.2008.08.003. Epub 2008 Oct 11.
In insects, the surface area of the compound eye increases with body size both within and between species with only a slight negative allometry. This increase in surface area permits changes in eye structure that affect the eye's acuity and sensitivity, two features of eye performance that cannot be simultaneously maximized. Hence, as eye size varies within a lineage, so will the compromises between features that maximize acuity and those that maximize sensitivity. We examined these compromises in four species of nymphalid butterflies that varied in body mass over almost two orders of magnitude. The largest of these species was crepuscular and so additionally may indicate the potential effect of life style on eye structure. Across these species, as body size increased, facet diameters increased while interommatidial angles decreased. Finally, the eye parameter was fairly constant across species except in the crepuscular species in which some notably large values were observed in the frontal visual field. Based on our measurements, large butterflies have more acute and more sensitive vision than smaller butterflies. However, full understanding of the behavioral implications of this relationship awaits information on the temporal resolution of their eyes because typical flight velocities also increase with body size.
在昆虫中，复眼的表面积会随着体型的增大而增加，在种内和种间都是如此，只是存在轻微的负异速生长。表面积的这种增加使得眼睛结构发生变化，进而影响眼睛的敏锐度和敏感度，而这两个眼睛性能特征无法同时最大化。因此，随着一个谱系内眼睛大小的变化，在使敏锐度最大化的特征和使敏感度最大化的特征之间的权衡也会发生变化。我们研究了四种蛱蝶的这种权衡，它们的体重相差近两个数量级。其中最大的物种是黄昏活动型的，因此这也可能额外表明生活方式对眼睛结构的潜在影响。在这些物种中，随着体型增大，小眼直径增大，而小眼间角减小。最后，除了黄昏活动型物种在其额叶视野中观察到一些明显较大的值外，眼睛参数在各物种间相当恒定。根据我们的测量，大型蝴蝶比小型蝴蝶拥有更敏锐和更敏感的视觉。然而，要全面理解这种关系对行为的影响，还需等待有关它们眼睛时间分辨率的信息，因为典型飞行速度也会随着体型增大而增加。
