Strategies and significance of self-assessing dynamic visual appearance.

Dynamic visual appearance, from the capacity of organisms to rapidly alter color or pattern of the body, is typically achieved through physiological color-change and/or bioluminescence. Since these processes often tune appearance to changing ecological conditions, even small errors in performance may impact fitness. Recent discoveries in the field of photobiology have led to an emerging hypothesis that photoreceptive systems associated with appearance-altering tissues function in the self-assessment of dynamic visual appearance. We outline the ecological significance of that self-assessment, the apparent convergence upon strategies to do so, and the implications of these strategies for: (i) the diversity of taxa that employ these strategies, and (ii) the evolution of visual pathways and optical structures previously only understood to serve ocular vision.

Duke Scholars

Author Sonke Johnsen Biology