Ecological importance of trichromatic vision to primates
Ecological importance of trichromatic vision to primates
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DOI：
10.1038/35066567
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发表时间：
2001-03-15
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Lucas, PW
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dominy, NJ;Lucas, PW
三色色觉，其特征是三种视网膜色素调谐到类似于430 nm、类似于535 nm和类似于562 nm的峰值波长（参考文献1、2），在卡他鼻灵长类动物和一种新世界猴属（吼猴属）中逐渐进化（3）。这种在其他哺乳动物中没有发现的区分红-绿色颜色的均匀能力，已经被认为有利于对成熟果实（4，5）或嫩叶（6）（在热带经常泛红（7））的远距离检测，而不是对成熟叶子（8，9）的背景。在这里，我们表明，四个三色灵长类动物物种在基巴莱森林，乌干达，吃的叶子是颜色歧视只有红绿色，颜色轴与高蛋白质水平和低韧性。尽管它们的消化系统不同，但这些灵长类动物在叶色选择上没有显著的种间差异。相比之下，吃的水果一般区分成熟的叶子上的红绿色和黄蓝色通道，也通过它们的亮度，与黑猩猩和猴子之间的显着差异，在水果颜色的选择。我们的研究结果表明，当水果稀缺时，叶消费是一种关键的食物资源（10），在维持卡他鼻的三色视觉方面具有独特的价值。
Trichromatic colour vision, characterized by three retinal photopigments tuned to peak wavelengths of similar to 430 nm, similar to 535 nm and similar to 562 nm (refs 1, 2), has evolved convergently in catarrhine primates and one genus of New World monkey, the howlers (genus Alouatta)(3). This uniform capacity to discriminate red- green colours, which is not found in other mammals, has been proposed as advantageous for the long-range detection of either ripe fruits(4,5) or young leaves(6) (which frequently flush red in the tropics(7)) against a background of mature foliage(8,9). Here we show that four trichromatic primate species in Kibale Forest, Uganda, eat leaves that are colour discriminated only by red-greenness, a colour axis correlated with high protein levels and low toughness. Despite their divergent digestive systems, these primates have no significant interspecific differences in leaf colour selection. In contrast, eaten fruits were generally discriminated from mature leaves on both red-green and yellow-blue channels and also by their luminance, with a significant difference between chimpanzees and monkeys in fruit colour choice. Our results implicate leaf consumption, a critical food resource when fruit is scarce(10), as having unique value in maintaining trichromacy in catarrhines.