Visual Function in Variable Environments: Mantis Shrimps as Models for the Sensory Biology of Color and Polarization Signaling

动物在自然界中执行的所有视觉任务都发生在特定的光环境中。一般的场景属性通常不像其他动物发出的刺激信号那样重要。因此，信号系统必须适应预期接收者的视觉和背景的属性。此外，由于照射在背景和生物体上的光照模式的不断变化，背景和生物体都不会有恒定的外观。这些变化的条件目前还不太清楚，它们强烈地影响信号的视觉外观和检测。这个项目考虑了一组海洋无脊椎动物--螳螂虾(口足类甲壳类动物)使用的视觉、自然光线和视觉信号之间的相互关系。螳螂虾的视觉是高度进化和专门化的，具有突出的颜色和偏振视觉，这些动物在竞争和交配行为中不断使用信号。最重要的是，许多螳螂虾物种生活在不同的栖息地，它们的视觉和视觉信号，包括颜色和偏振光，都以似乎适应不同环境的方式变化。这个项目以螳螂虾为模型，研究(1)动物的颜色(即光谱反射率)和图案如何适应增强的显着性，以及(2)动物的视觉系统如何专门或调整以检测信号。在各种选择的密切相关的动物之间进行了比较，所有这些动物都面临着相同的感觉挑战：在海洋栖息地多样性的光约束下生物信号的形成和识别。这项研究是一项开创性的努力，旨在了解视觉和信号系统如何在一组极其五颜六色的海洋物种的自然光源和背景的特定背景下，在不同的、精心挑选的环境中运作。它的优势在于选择物种和栖息地，并考虑到最近在理解信号和自然场景特性方面的重大进展。这项拟议的研究将对感觉生物学、视觉生态学和感觉进化领域做出重大贡献，并将增加从事光子学、遥感、机器视觉和人工目标检测和识别系统的工程师和科学家的兴趣。该项目包括大量的学生培训、国际合作，并对公众对动物视觉、颜色和交流的科学兴趣产生了影响。

All visual tasks that animals perform in nature occur within the contexts of specific light environments. General scene properties usually are not as critical as stimulus signals sent by other animals. Thus, signaling systems must adapt both to vision of intended receivers and properties of the background. Furthermore, neither the background nor the organism has constant appearance because of continuous variations in the patterns of illumination falling upon them. These changing conditions, which at present are poorly understood, strongly influence the visual appearances and detection of signals. This project considers the interrelationships among vision, natural lighting, and visual signals used by a group of marine invertebrates, the mantis shrimps (stomatopod crustaceans). Mantis shrimp vision is highly evolved and specialized, capable of outstanding color and polarization vision, and these animals use signals constantly in agonistic and mating behavior. Most importantly, many mantis shrimp species live in diverse habitats where both their vision and their visual signals, including both color and polarized light, change in ways that seem to be adaptive to the varied environment. Using mantis shrimps as models, this project examines (1) how colors (i.e. spectral reflectances) and patterns of animals are adapted for enhanced conspicuousness, and (2) how visual systems of animals are specialized or tuned to detect signals. Comparisons are made among a diverse selection of closely related animals, all of which face identical sensory challenges: the formation and recognition of biological signals in the photic constraints of diversity of marine habitats. The research is a pioneering effort to learn how systems of vision and signaling operate in a diverse, carefully chosen set of extremely colorful marine species in the specific contexts of their natural illuminants and backgrounds. Its strengths lie in the selection of species and habitats and in the consideration of recent major advances in understanding the properties of signals and natural scenes. The proposed research will contribute significantly to the fields of sensory biology, visual ecology, and sensory evolution, and will be of added interest to engineers and scientists working in photonics, remote sensing, machine vision, and artificial systems of object detection and recognition. The project includes substantial student training, international collaborations, and has an impact on the general public scientific interest in animal vision, color, and communication.