Symposium on Vision in Elasmobranchs, Note Marine Laboratory, Florida, April 28-29, 1989

结构和功能的多样性直接影响动物的感觉能力。受体，处理器和效应器单元允许动物利用感官信息作为一种环境资源。感觉系统的比较研究很重要，因为它可能有助于解释某些物种的相对进化成功。这次跨学科的会议采用这种综合的观点来研究包括鲨鱼和鳐鱼在内的板鳃鱼类的视觉。弹性门代表了一个相对较小但在进化上非常重要的脊椎动物群。虽然这些动物中的一些物种具有某些系统的相对原始的组织，但其他物种具有显著的专门适应；视觉就是表现这种多样性的一种感官。最近各种各样的研究探索了这些动物的视觉生物化学、解剖学、生理学和行为。本次会议将围绕弹性鳃目视觉系统的功能，其与生态因素的关系，以及其对理解脊椎动物视觉的重要性等方面的最新信息进行整合。这次会议对神经科学来说是新颖的，因为它不是用不同的动物从亚细胞或细胞的角度来观察功能，而是用一个动物群体从亚细胞到生态的角度来观察感觉功能。这项工作将对视觉科学、其他感官系统、生态学和海洋生物学的研究产生影响。

Structural and functional diversity directly contribute to an animal's sensory abilities. Receptor, processor and effector units allow an animal to utilize sensory information as an environmental resource. Comparative study of sensory systems is important because it may help explain the relative evolutionary success of certain species. This interdisciplinary conference takes this integrative perspective to examine vision in elasmobranch branch fishes, which include the sharks and rays. Elasmobranchs represent a relatively small but evolutionarily very important group of vertebrates. While some species of these animals have relatively primitive organization of certain systems, other species have remarkably specialized adaptations; vision is one sense showing such diversity. A variety of recent studies have explored visual biochemistry, anatomy, physiology, and behavior in these animals. This conference will coalesce this recent information around the functioning of the visual system of elasmobranchs, its relation to ecological factors, and its importance to understanding vision in the vertebrates. This conference is novel for neuroscience because instead of using different animals to look at functions from a subcellular or cellular perspective, it uses one animal group to look at sensory function from perspectives ranging from the subcellular to the ecological. The work will have impact on work on visual science, on other sensory systems, on ecology and on marine biology.