Extreme spectral richness of the eye of the Common Bluebottle, Graphium sarpedon
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1
National Taiwan University, Department of Entomology, Taiwan
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2
The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Department of Evolutionary Studies of Biosystems, Japan
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3
National Taiwan University, Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, Taiwan
Color vision requires multiple photoreceptor classes of different spectral sensitivity. Accumulated evidence indicates that some butterflies have six or more classes of spectral receptors, suggesting their fine color vision. Here we report the variety of photoreceptors in the Common Bluebottle, Graphium sarpedon. By intracellular electrophysiology, we identified at least 15 spectrally distinct photoreceptors, which is the most among insects studied so far.
Several mechanisms are known to enhance spectral variability of insect photoreceptors. The primary mechanism is opsin gene multiplication. In the eyes of Graphium, we identified five mRNAs each encoding opsin of an ultraviolet (GsUV), a blue (GsB), or three long wavelength (GsL2, L3a, L3b)-absorbing visual pigment. These opsins are expressed differently in the dorsal and ventral regions. Some photoreceptors coexpress even more than two opsins. The unique regionalization and opsin distribution explain the varieties of spectral sensitivity to some extent. However, some of the sensitivities are too narrow and cannot be simply explained by the absorption spectra of visual pigments. The sharpening is probably due to the filtering by photo-stable pigments. In vivo fluorescence microscopy reveals that the Graphium eye is composed of three types of ommatidia with strong, weak, and no fluorescence under UV epi-illumination. The weakly fluorescing ommatidia have yellow pigment around the rhabdom, while other two have red pigment there.
The unique variability of spectral receptor would be attributed to the opsin distribution, pigment properties, and photoreceptor ultrastructure. Here we propose the localization pattern of the 15 spectral receptor classes in the three types of ommatidia. The eye with extreme spectral richness suggests a sophisticated ability of color discrimination.
Keywords:
Photoreceptor Cells,
Spectral sensitivity,
Opsin,
filtering effect,
butterfly
Conference:
International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013.
Presentation Type:
Poster presentation preferred
Topic:
Colour and polarisation vision
Citation:
Chen
P,
Awata
H,
Matsushita
A,
Yang
E and
Arikawa
K
(2019). Extreme spectral richness of the eye of the Common Bluebottle, Graphium sarpedon.
Front. Physiol.
Conference Abstract:
International Conference on Invertebrate Vision.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00022
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Received:
01 May 2013;
Published Online:
09 Dec 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Pei-Ju Chen, National Taiwan University, Department of Entomology, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan, peijuchen@gate.sinica.edu.tw