The Functional Organization and Evolution of a Novel Insect Visual System.

新型昆虫视觉系统的功能组织和进化。

• 批准号: 0211770
• 负责人: Elke Buschbeck
• 金额: $ 31.5万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-09-01 至 2004-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0211770&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Functional; Organization; Evolution; Novel; Insect

Lay AbstractHoy (0211770) The functional organization and evolution of a novel insect visual system.The eyes of insects, which are called compound eyes, are generally constructed from thousands of tiny lenses, each of which captures a single image point in space. Compound eyes are organized following a blueprint that is evolutionarily conserved throughout insects and even most crustaceans (shrimp, crabs etc.). Surprisingly, the twisted-wing insect (Strepsiptera), does not follow this blueprint but instead has an eye that represents an intermediate form between an image forming lens eye, such as found in vertebrates, and the typical insect eye. In this highly specialized, parasitic group of insects, several large lenses each capture a small image or "chunk" of the visual environment. These lens-based building blocks together form a small eye that samples a wide visual field. This project focuses on the functional organization of this unique eye. This intermediate organization escapes some of the classical limitations of both the compound eye and the single lens eye. A deeper understanding of the strepsipteran eye type could contribute to the growing field of biomimicry, where it could lead to new technologies for small sensors that sample wide visual fields. Much of this project will be devoted to investigating the neural substrate that integrates the partial images supplied by individual lenses. In Strepsiptera the visual information from neighboring eyelets has to be integrated into one large coherent image. Understanding the design that performs such integration may reveal novel neural mechanisms in vision research. Because this eye is so different from that of all other insects, we will also investigate specific aspects of its development and use a comparative approach to investigate its evolutionary origin. There are two major aspects in which this project will have a broader impact on our society: (1) it will reveal the organization, development and evolution of unique neural and optical structures which are interesting as adaptations to a specific life style, and may have the potential to become the basis for future technologies, and (2) it will provide considerable educational benefits, both in terms of training students and in terms of educating the greater public. Several undergraduate students will be involved at any given time throughout the project. These students will have the opportunity to become members of an active research laboratory where they will be exposed to many different techniques andcross-disciplinary training. Also, various forms of outreach and public education, ranging from a web-page in lay language to the design of a museum exhibit will be pursued. Interest of the public already has been expressed after initial publication on those eyes in Science, which lead to articles in National Geographic, Time Magazine, New York Times, Scientific American, Discovery, and others.

Lay AbstractHoy (0211770) 新型昆虫视觉系统的功能组织和进化。昆虫的眼睛被称为复眼，通常由数千个微小透镜构成，每个透镜捕捉空间中的单个图像点。 复眼的组织遵循在昆虫甚至大多数甲壳类动物（虾、螃蟹等）中进化上保守的蓝图。 令人惊讶的是，扭翅昆虫（Strepsiptera）并没有遵循这个蓝图，而是具有代表成像透镜眼睛（例如在脊椎动物中发现的）和典型昆虫眼睛之间的中间形式的眼睛。 在这个高度专业化的寄生昆虫群中，几个大镜头各自捕捉视觉环境的一个小图像或“块”。 这些基于透镜的构建块共同形成了一只小眼睛，可以采样广阔的视野。 该项目重点关注这只独特眼睛的功能组织。 这种中间组织逃脱了复眼和单晶状眼的一些经典限制。 对链翅目眼睛类型的更深入了解可能有助于仿生学领域的不断发展，这可能会导致对宽视野进行采样的小型传感器的新技术。 该项目的大部分内容将致力于研究整合各个镜头提供的部分图像的神经基质。 在链翅目中，来自相邻孔眼的视觉信息必须整合到一张大的连贯图像中。 了解执行此类集成的设计可能会揭示视觉研究中的新颖神经机制。 由于这种眼睛与所有其他昆虫的眼睛非常不同，我们还将研究其发育的具体方面，并使用比较方法来研究其进化起源。 该项目将在两个主要方面对我们的社会产生更广泛的影响：（1）它将揭示独特的神经和光学结构的组织、发展和进化，这些结构对于适应特定的生活方式很有趣，并且有可能成为未来技术的基础；（2）它将在培训学生和教育更多公众方面提供可观的教育效益。 一些本科生将在整个项目的任何特定时间参与其中。 这些学生将有机会成为活跃研究实验室的成员，在那里他们将接触到许多不同的技术和跨学科培训。 此外，还将开展各种形式的外展和公共教育，从通俗语言的网页到博物馆展览的设计。 自《科学》杂志首次发表这些眼睛以来，公众就已经表达了兴趣，《国家地理》、《时代》杂志、《纽约时报》、《科学美国人》、《探索》等杂志上都发表了文章。