‘Super-human’ colour vision: how does it improve animal visual performance?

色觉使动物能够找到食物，吸引配偶和躲避捕食者。许多动物，包括鱼类、鸟类和昆虫，都有“超人”的色彩视觉系统，它们使用4或5个光谱通道来处理颜色，而不是我们的3个。然而，我们不知道如何通过这些不同的通道组合信息来实现色觉。该项目将开发新技术来测量一系列动物分类群的紫外线视觉，并展示具有4或5个光谱通道的动物如何整合或分割视觉信息来感知颜色。该研究金将为开发用于医疗、军事、安全和遥感应用的下一代多光谱照相机提供新的生物模型。

Colour vision enables animals to find food, attract mates and avoid predators. Many animals, including fish, birds and insects, have ‘super-human’ colour vision systems and process colour using 4 or 5 spectral channels, instead of our 3. Yet we do not know how information is combined across these different channels to achieve colour vision. This project will develop new technology to measure UV vision in a range of animal taxa, and show how animals with 4 or 5 spectral channels integrate or partition visual information to perceive colour. The Fellowship will provide new biological models for the development of next-generation multispectral cameras used in medical, military, security and remote sensing applications.