Publication Date:
2012-06-30
Description:
Despite their diversity, vertebrate retinae are specialized to maximize either photon catch or visual acuity. Here, we describe a functional type that is optimized for neither purpose. In the retina of the elephantnose fish (Gnathonemus petersii), cone photoreceptors are grouped together within reflecting, photonic crystal-lined cups acting as macroreceptors, but rod photoreceptors are positioned behind these reflectors. This unusual arrangement matches rod and cone sensitivity for detecting color-mixed stimuli, whereas the photoreceptor grouping renders the fish insensitive to spatial noise; together, this enables more reliable flight reactions in the fish's dim and turbid habitat as compared with fish lacking this retinal specialization.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kreysing, Moritz -- Pusch, Roland -- Haverkate, Dorothee -- Landsberger, Meik -- Engelmann, Jacob -- Ruiter, Janina -- Mora-Ferrer, Carlos -- Ulbricht, Elke -- Grosche, Jens -- Franze, Kristian -- Streif, Stefan -- Schumacher, Sarah -- Makarov, Felix -- Kacza, Johannes -- Guck, Jochen -- Wolburg, Hartwig -- Bowmaker, James K -- von der Emde, Gerhard -- Schuster, Stefan -- Wagner, Hans-Joachim -- Reichenbach, Andreas -- Francke, Mike -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Jun 29;336(6089):1700-3. doi: 10.1126/science.1218072.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22745429" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Fishes/anatomy & histology/*physiology
;
Goldfish
;
Light
;
Photoreceptor Cells, Vertebrate/physiology/ultrastructure
;
Predatory Behavior
;
Retina/anatomy & histology/*physiology/ultrastructure
;
*Vision, Ocular
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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