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Compound eyes of the small white butterfly Pieris rapae have three distinct classes of red photoreceptors
- Source :
- Journal of comparative physiology a-Neuroethology sensory neural and behavioral physiology, 205(4), 553-565. SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019.
-
Abstract
- The two subspecies of the small white butterfly, the European Pieris rapae rapae and the Asian P. r. crucivora, differ in wing colouration. Under ultraviolet light, the wings of both male and female P. r. rapae appear dark, whereas the wings of male P. r. crucivora are dark and those of females are bright. It has been hypothesized that these sexually dimorphic wing reflections in P. r. crucivora may have induced the evolution of a fluorescing-screening pigment in the violet-opsin-expressing photoreceptors of males, thus facilitating greater wavelength discrimination near 400nm. Comparing the compound eyes of the two subspecies using genetic, microscopical, spectrographic, and histological methods revealed no differences that would meaningfully affect photoreceptor sensitivity, suggesting that the fluorescing-screening pigment did not evolve in response to sexually dimorphic wing reflections. Our investigation further revealed that (i) the peri-rhabdomal reddish-screening pigments differ among the three ommatidial types; (ii) each of the ommatidial types exhibits a unique class of red photoreceptor with a distinct spectral peak; and (iii) the blue, green, and red photoreceptors of P. rapae exhibit a polarization sensitivity >2, with red photoreceptors allowing for a two-channel opponency form of polarization sensitivity.
- Subjects :
- Male
Pigments
CHOICES
genetic structures
Physiology
030310 physiology
GREEN
Zoology
Pieris rapae
Biology
Subspecies
Fluorescence
Polarization sensitivity
03 medical and health sciences
Behavioral Neuroscience
0302 clinical medicine
OMMATIDIA
Ultraviolet light
Animals
Spectral sensitivity
HETEROGENEITY
Compound Eye, Arthropod
Phylogeny
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Sex Characteristics
0303 health sciences
Wing
RECEPTOR
LOCALIZATION
biology.organism_classification
Sexual dimorphism
White (mutation)
VISION
Butterfly
Female
Photoreceptor Cells, Invertebrate
Animal Science and Zoology
sense organs
SENSITIVITY
Butterflies
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14321351 and 03407594
- Volume :
- 205
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Comparative Physiology A
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e5cbc720eda32fd94d68787f527fb569
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-019-01330-8