Natural Scenes and the Design of the Color Visual Systems of Marine Animals

克罗宁9724028颜色与整个动物王国的视觉密切相关。 色觉在识别配偶或竞争者，以及确定捕食者和猎物伪装的有效性方面起着关键作用。 使用颜色的视觉系统都是在自然场景中光的特性的背景下进化的;这些光谱特性定义了动物眼睛中生物有用的颜色受体阵列的潜在限制。 海洋动物有时缺乏色觉，但在最复杂的形式中，一些甲壳类动物有多达十几种光谱受体类别，远远超过任何已知的陆地动物。 该项目分析了这些复杂甲壳类动物生活的自然水下场景的光谱和空间特性，以及这些动物在物种内部和物种之间基于颜色的通信中使用的信号系统。这些结果将有助于回答如何从他们的许多光谱类型的受体整合信息，使他们能够利用在海洋中的颜色视觉。这项研究将提供一个有价值的情况下，水生无脊椎动物比较陆地颜色视觉和它的进化在昆虫，鸟类和灵长类动物。 它有可能对海洋生物学、进化和生态学以及遥感装置的设计产生超越感官科学的影响。

Cronin 9724028 Color is intimately linked to vision throughout the animal kingdom. Color vision can play key roles in recognition of mates or competitors, and in determining effectiveness of camouflage for predators and prey. Visual systems using color have all evolved in the context of the properties of the light in natural scenes; these spectral properties define the potential limits of biologically useful arrays of color receptors in the eyes of animals. Marine animals sometimes lack color vision, but in the most complex forms, some crustaceans have as many as a dozen spectral receptor classes, far more than in any known terrestrial animals. This project analyzes the spectral and spatial properties of natural underwater scenes where these complex crustaceans live, and the signaling systems that these animals use in color-based communication within and between species. The results will help answer how the integrated information from their many spectral types of receptors enables them to exploit color vision in the sea. This study will provide a valuable case of an aquatic invertebrate to compare to terrestrial color vision and its evolution in insects, birds and primates. It is likely to have an impact beyond sensory science, on the fields of marine biology, evolution and ecology, and on the design of remote sensing devices.