title: Spectral absorption of visual pigments in stomatopod larval photoreceptors.
abstract: Larval stomatopod eyes appear to be much simpler versions of adult compound eyes, lacking most of the visual pigment diversity and photoreceptor specializations. Our understanding of the visual pigment diversity of larval stomatopods, however, is based on four species, which severely limits our understanding of stomatopod eye ontogeny. To investigate several poorly understood aspects of stomatopod larval eye function, we tested two hypotheses surrounding the spectral absorption of larval visual pigments. First, we examined a broad range of species to determine if stomatopod larvae generally express a single, spectral class of photoreceptor. Using microspectrophotometry (MSP) on larvae captured in the field, we found data which further support this long-standing hypothesis. MSP was also used to test whether larval species from the same geographical region express visual pigments with similar absorption spectra. Interestingly, despite occupation of the same geographical location, we did not find evidence to support our second hypothesis. Rather, there was significant variation in visual pigment absorption spectra among sympatric species. These data are important to further our understanding of larval photoreceptor spectral diversity, which is beneficial to ongoing investigations into the ontogeny, physiology, and molecular evolution of stomatopod eyes.
authors.affiliation: University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1TQ, UK. kate.feller@bristol.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Kathryn D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Feller
authors.affiliation: University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD, 21250, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Cronin
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D055253:Color Vision / Q000502:physiology*; D033364:Decapoda; D042967:Electron Transport Complex I / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D007814:Larva / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D015591:Microspectrophotometry; D065587:Ocular Absorption / Q000502:physiology*; D017956:Photoreceptor Cells, Invertebrate / Q000502:physiology*; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D042967:Electron Transport Complex I
keywords: Larva; Microspectrophotometry; Stomatopod; Visual ecology; Visual pigment