Marine Biological Section, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 4, 2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark.
Greenland Climate Research Centre, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Kivioq 2, 3900 Nuuk, Greenland.
Proc Biol Sci. 2018 Feb 14;285(1872). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2743.
Asteroids, starfish, are important members of the macro-benthos in almost all marine environments including the deep sea. Starfish are in general assumed to be largely olfactory guided, but recent studies have shown that two tropical shallow water species rely on vision alone to find their habitat at short distances. Their compound eyes are found at the tip of each arm and they vary little between examined species. Still, nothing is known about vision in the species found in the aphotic zone of the deep sea or whether they even have eyes. Here, 13 species of starfish from Greenland waters, covering a depth range from shallow waters to the deep sea below 1000 m, were examined for the presence of eyes and optical and morphological examinations were used to estimate the quality of vision. Further, species found in the aphotic zone below 320 m were checked for bioluminescence. All species, except the infaunal , had eyes, and two were found to be bioluminescent. Interestingly, one of the species found in the aphotic zone, , had close to the highest spatial resolution known for starfish eyes along with being bioluminescent. Accordingly, we hypothesize that this species communicates visually using bioluminescent flashes putatively for reproductive purposes. Other species have greatly enhanced sensitivity with few large ommatidia but at the sacrifice of spatial resolution. The discovery of eyes in deep-sea starfish with a huge variation in optical quality and sensitivity indicates that their visual ecology also differs greatly.
小行星，海星，是几乎所有海洋环境（包括深海）中大型底栖生物的重要成员。海星通常被认为主要是嗅觉引导的，但最近的研究表明，两种热带浅海水生物种仅依靠视觉在短距离内找到它们的栖息地。它们的复眼位于每只腕足的末端，在检查过的物种之间差异很小。然而，对于在深海无光带中发现的物种的视觉，或者它们是否有眼睛，仍然一无所知。在这里，对来自格陵兰水域的 13 种海星进行了检查，涵盖了从浅水区到 1000 米以下深海的深度范围，以检查它们是否存在眼睛，并使用光学和形态学检查来估计视力质量。此外，还检查了在 320 米以下无光带中发现的物种是否具有生物发光性。除了穴居物种外，所有物种都有眼睛，其中两种具有生物发光性。有趣的是，在无光带中发现的一种物种，具有接近海星眼睛已知的最高空间分辨率，同时具有生物发光性。因此，我们假设该物种使用生物发光闪烁进行视觉交流，可能用于繁殖目的。其他物种的大感光细胞数量很少，但牺牲了空间分辨率，从而极大地提高了灵敏度。深海海星眼睛的光学质量和灵敏度存在巨大差异，这一发现表明它们的视觉生态也存在很大差异。
