Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2022 May 25;289(1975):20220612. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0612. Epub 2022 May 18.
The spectrum of light that an animal sees-from ultraviolet to far red light-is governed by the number and wavelength sensitivity of a family of retinal proteins called opsins. It has been hypothesized that the spectrum of light available in an environment influences the range of colours that a species has evolved to see. However, invertebrates and vertebrates use phylogenetically distinct opsins in their retinae, and it remains unclear whether these distinct opsins influence what animals see, or how they adapt to their light environments. Systematically using published visual sensitivity data from across animal phyla, we found that terrestrial animals are more sensitive to shorter and longer wavelengths of light than aquatic animals and that invertebrates are more sensitive to shorter wavelengths of light than vertebrates. Using phylogenetically controlled analyses, we found that closed and open canopy habitat species have different spectral sensitivities when comparing across the Metazoa and excluding habitat generalists, while deepwater animals are no more sensitive to shorter wavelengths of light than shallow-water animals. Our results suggest that animals do adapt to their light environment; however, the invertebrate-vertebrate evolutionary divergence may limit the degree to which animals can perform visual tuning.
动物所能看到的光的光谱范围——从紫外线到远红光——由一类被称为视蛋白的视网膜蛋白的数量和波长敏感性决定。有人假设，环境中可用的光的光谱范围影响了一个物种进化出的可看到的颜色范围。然而，无脊椎动物和脊椎动物在它们的视网膜中使用系统发育上不同的视蛋白，目前还不清楚这些不同的视蛋白是否会影响动物的视觉，或者它们如何适应其光照环境。我们系统地使用了来自动物各个门的已发表的视觉灵敏度数据，发现与水生动物相比，陆生动物对较短和较长波长的光更敏感，而无脊椎动物对较短波长的光比脊椎动物更敏感。通过系统发育控制分析，我们发现，在比较后生动物时，排除栖息地通才，封闭和开放树冠栖息地物种的光谱敏感性不同，而深水动物对较短波长的光的敏感性并不高于浅水动物。我们的研究结果表明，动物确实会适应其光照环境；然而，无脊椎动物与脊椎动物的进化分歧可能限制了动物进行视觉调整的程度。
