New insight into functional eye evolution: seeing the world through moving photoreceptors.

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We wish to understand how insects perceive the 3-dimensional world they live in and use this knowledge to simulate what they see, mathematically. We have made the first critical step of this unique approach by generating a new theory that predicts how well a fruit fly sees 3-dimensional objects and demonstrated its accuracy in predicting neural responses and visual behaviours. This proposal aims for the next step: to test and expand this approach to other insects, in which eyes and brains have adapted to different lifestyles and environments, to decipher stereo vision from a completely new dynamic perspective.To move efficiently, animals must continuously work out their x,y,z-positions in respect to real-world objects, and many animals have a pair of eyes to achieve this. How photoreceptors actively sample the eyes' optical image disparity is not understood because this fundamental information-limiting step has not been investigated in vivo over the eyes' whole sampling matrix. This integrative multiscale study aims to advance our current understanding of stereopsis in insect compound eyes, from static image disparity comparison to a new morphodynamic active sampling theory. It is designed, using experiments and theory, to reveal and analyse how photomechanical photoreceptor microsaccades in the butterfly, honeybees, ant and housefly eyes have adapted through evolution to provide super-resolution 3D vision. This research aims to reveal how well each of these insect species see the three-dimensional world, and use this information to predict their visual capabilities and behaviours. Moreover, the results obtained with this research have real potential to provide new algorithms for robotic sensing and three-dimensional machine vision.