Vision in the deep sea
Warrant, Eric LU
and Locket, NA
(2004)
In Biological Reviews
79(3).
p.671-712
- Abstract
- The deep sea is the largest habitat on earth. Its three great faunal environments - the twilight mesopelagic zone, the dark bathypelagic zone and the vast flat expanses of the benthic habitat- are home to a rich fauna of vertebrates and invertebrates. In the mesopelagic zone (150-1000 in), the down-welling daylight creates an extended scene that becomes increasingly dimmer and bluer with depth. The available daylight also originates increasingly, from vertically above, and bioluminescent point-source flashes, well contrasted against the dim background daylight become increasingly visible. In the bathypelagic zone below 1000 m no daylight remains, and the scene becomes entirel, dominated by point-like biolumincscence. This changing nature... (More)
- The deep sea is the largest habitat on earth. Its three great faunal environments - the twilight mesopelagic zone, the dark bathypelagic zone and the vast flat expanses of the benthic habitat- are home to a rich fauna of vertebrates and invertebrates. In the mesopelagic zone (150-1000 in), the down-welling daylight creates an extended scene that becomes increasingly dimmer and bluer with depth. The available daylight also originates increasingly, from vertically above, and bioluminescent point-source flashes, well contrasted against the dim background daylight become increasingly visible. In the bathypelagic zone below 1000 m no daylight remains, and the scene becomes entirel, dominated by point-like biolumincscence. This changing nature of visual scenes with depth - from extended source to point source - has had a profound effect on the designs of deep-sea eyes, both optically and neurally, a fact that until recently was not fully appreciated. Recent measurements of the sensitivity and spatial resolution of deep-sea eyes - particularly from the camera eyes of fishes and cephalopods and the compound eyes of crustaceans - reveal that ocular designs are well matched to the nature of the visual scene at any criven depth. This match between eye design and visual scene is the subject of this review. The greatest variation eye design is found in the mesopelagic zone, where dim down-welling daylight and bioluminescent point Sources may be visible simultaneously. Some ruesopelagic eyes rely on spatial and temporal Summation to increase sensitivity to a dim extended scene, while others sacrifice this sensitivity to localise pinpoints of bright bioluminescence. Yet other eyes have retinal regions separately specialised for each type of light. In the bathypelagic zone, eyes generally get smaller and therefore less sensitive to point sources with increasing depth. In fishes, this insensitivty, combined with surprisingly high spatial resolution, is very well adapted to the detection and locallsation of point-source bioluminescence at ecologically meaningful distances. At all depths, the eyes of animals active on and over the nutrient-rich sea floor are generally larger than the eyes of pelagic species. In fishes, the retinal ganglion bells are also frequently arranged in a horizontal visual streak, an adaptation for., the wide flat horizon of the sea floor, and all animals living there. These and many other aspects of light viewing and vision in the deep sea are renewed in support of the following conclusion: it is not only the intensity of light at different depths, but also its distribution in space, which has been a major force in the evolution of deep-sea vision. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/268208
- author
- Warrant, Eric
LU
and Locket, NA
- organization
- publishing date
- 2004
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- deep sea, natural scene, visual ecology, bioluminescence, crustacean, fish, vision, eye design, cephalopod
- in
- Biological Reviews
- volume
- 79
- issue
- 3
- pages
- 671 - 712
- publisher
- John Wiley & Sons Inc.
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:15366767
- wos:000223741800008
- scopus:4344573708
- ISSN
- 1469-185X
- DOI
- 10.1017/S1464793103006420
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 3454b7d2-3804-4963-b17c-2d6f64ed3323 (old id 268208)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 12:04:15
- date last changed
- 2022-04-21 01:58:24
@article{3454b7d2-3804-4963-b17c-2d6f64ed3323,
abstract = {{The deep sea is the largest habitat on earth. Its three great faunal environments - the twilight mesopelagic zone, the dark bathypelagic zone and the vast flat expanses of the benthic habitat- are home to a rich fauna of vertebrates and invertebrates. In the mesopelagic zone (150-1000 in), the down-welling daylight creates an extended scene that becomes increasingly dimmer and bluer with depth. The available daylight also originates increasingly, from vertically above, and bioluminescent point-source flashes, well contrasted against the dim background daylight become increasingly visible. In the bathypelagic zone below 1000 m no daylight remains, and the scene becomes entirel, dominated by point-like biolumincscence. This changing nature of visual scenes with depth - from extended source to point source - has had a profound effect on the designs of deep-sea eyes, both optically and neurally, a fact that until recently was not fully appreciated. Recent measurements of the sensitivity and spatial resolution of deep-sea eyes - particularly from the camera eyes of fishes and cephalopods and the compound eyes of crustaceans - reveal that ocular designs are well matched to the nature of the visual scene at any criven depth. This match between eye design and visual scene is the subject of this review. The greatest variation eye design is found in the mesopelagic zone, where dim down-welling daylight and bioluminescent point Sources may be visible simultaneously. Some ruesopelagic eyes rely on spatial and temporal Summation to increase sensitivity to a dim extended scene, while others sacrifice this sensitivity to localise pinpoints of bright bioluminescence. Yet other eyes have retinal regions separately specialised for each type of light. In the bathypelagic zone, eyes generally get smaller and therefore less sensitive to point sources with increasing depth. In fishes, this insensitivty, combined with surprisingly high spatial resolution, is very well adapted to the detection and locallsation of point-source bioluminescence at ecologically meaningful distances. At all depths, the eyes of animals active on and over the nutrient-rich sea floor are generally larger than the eyes of pelagic species. In fishes, the retinal ganglion bells are also frequently arranged in a horizontal visual streak, an adaptation for., the wide flat horizon of the sea floor, and all animals living there. These and many other aspects of light viewing and vision in the deep sea are renewed in support of the following conclusion: it is not only the intensity of light at different depths, but also its distribution in space, which has been a major force in the evolution of deep-sea vision.}},
author = {{Warrant, Eric and Locket, NA}},
issn = {{1469-185X}},
keywords = {{deep sea; natural scene; visual ecology; bioluminescence; crustacean; fish; vision; eye design; cephalopod}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{3}},
pages = {{671--712}},
publisher = {{John Wiley & Sons Inc.}},
series = {{Biological Reviews}},
title = {{Vision in the deep sea}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1464793103006420}},
doi = {{10.1017/S1464793103006420}},
volume = {{79}},
year = {{2004}},
}