Protein Limitation Explains Variation in Primate Colour Vision Phenotypes: A Unified Model for the Evolution of Primate Trichromatic Vision

@inproceedings{Valenta2012ProteinLE,
  title={Protein Limitation Explains Variation in Primate Colour Vision Phenotypes: A Unified Model for the Evolution of Primate Trichromatic Vision},
  author={Kim Valenta and Amanda D. Melin},
  year={2012}
}
Primate colour vision has intrigued scientists for many decades and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Primates are the most visually adapted order of mammals and a considerable proportion of their large brain size is devoted to processing visual information (e.g. Barton, 2006). Most eutherian mammals have dichromatic (two-colour) vision, and chromatic distinctions are based on discriminating relatively shorter from relatively longer wavelengths within the visual spectrum… 
View via Publisher
cdn.intechopen.com
12 Citations
Background Citations
6

Tables from this paper

12 Citations

Polymorphism and adaptation of primate colour vision
TLDR
New World monkeys can serve as an excellent model to understand and evaluate the adaptive significance of primate trichromacy in a behavioural context, and the genetic and behavioural study on primate colour vision polymorphism and adaptation is introduced.
Chapter 13 Polymorphism and Adaptation of Primate Colour Vision
TLDR
New World monkeys can serve as an excellent model to understand and evaluate the adaptive significance of primate trichromacy in a behavioural context and the genetic and behavioural study on primate colour vision polymorphism and is introduced.
Howler monkey foraging ecology suggests convergent evolution of routine trichromacy as an adaptation for folivory
TLDR
It is hypothesized that howlers experience stronger selection against dichromatic phenotypes than other sympatric species, which rely more heavily on cryptic foods, and provides support for the folivory hypothesis of routine trichromacy.
The gaze of a social monkey is perceptible to conspecifics and predators but not prey
TLDR
It is found that capuchins, regardless of their colour vision phenotype, as well as their predators, were capable of effectively discriminating capuchin gaze across ecologically relevant distances, and their prey, in contrast, were not capable of discriminatingcapuchin gaze, even under relatively ideal conditions.
The Use of In Vivo, Ex Vivo, In Vitro, Computational Models and Volunteer Studies in Vision Research and Therapy, and Their Contribution to the Three Rs
TLDR
The advantages and limitations of animal and non-animal methods for vision research are discussed, and their relative contributions to basic knowledge and clinical practice are assessed, as well as outlining the opportunities they offer for implementing the principles of the Three Rs.
Primate-Plant Interactions in the Tropical Dry Forests of Northwestern Madagascar: Seed Dispersal and Sensory Ecology of Eulemur fulvus.
TLDR
It is determined that many ripe fruits colors are conspicuous to brown lemurs against a background of leaves, and that ripe fruits are significantly different chromatically from unripe fruits, which means that during foraging, fruit odor and fruit size are the two strongest determinants of brown lemur foraging behavior and efficiency.
Seasonality, extractive foraging and the evolution of primate sensorimotor intelligence.
Why eat flowers? Symphonia globulifera flowers provide a fatty resource for red-tailed monkeys
Flowers are ubiquitous in primate environments, yet their nutritional advantages are underexamined. Symphonia globulifera is a widely distributed tree exploited by a variety of animals in Africa and…
Primate life history, social dynamics, ecology, and conservation: Contributions from long‐term research in Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Research on non‐human primates in the endangered tropical dry forest of Sector Santa Rosa (SSR), Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), was launched in 1983 and is now one of the longest running…
Sensory integration during foraging: the importance of fruit hardness, colour, and odour to brown lemurs
TLDR
The use of different sensory modalities by lemurs is marginally predicted in one case by fruit traits—fruits with higher overall smell signals are sniffed less than fruits with lower Overall smell signals.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 117 REFERENCES
Detection of Fruit and the Selection of Primate Visual Pigments for Color Vision
TLDR
Comparing different types of color vision for detecting more than 100 plant species consumed by tamarins in Peru shows evidence that both frequency‐dependent selection on homozygotes and heterozygote advantage favor M/L polymorphism and that trichromatic color vision is most advantageous in dim light.
Colour vision as an adaptation to frugivory in primates
  • D. Osorio, M. Vorobyev
  • Biology
    Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
  • 1996
TLDR
A model of retinal coding of natural spectra, based on discrimination thresholds, is used to examine the usefulness of dichromatic and trichromatic vision for finding fruit, and for identifying fruit and leaves by colour.
Ecological importance of trichromatic vision to primates
TLDR
Four trichromatic primate species in Kibale Forest, Uganda, eat leaves that are colour discriminated only by red–greenness, a colour axis correlated with high protein levels and low toughness, which implicate leaf consumption, a critical food resource when fruit is scarce, as having unique value in maintaining trichromeacy in catarrhines.
Evolution and spectral tuning of visual pigments in birds and mammals
TLDR
The extent of diversity in mammals and birds in terms of types and spectral characteristics of visual pigments is discussed in detail in this review, alongside an in-depth consideration of the molecular changes involved.
Trans‐specific evolution of opsin alleles and the maintenance of trichromatic colour vision in Callitrichine primates
TLDR
An extensive survey of allelic variation in both exons and introns at this locus within and among species of the Callitrichines is described, providing direct evidence for trans‐specific evolution of alleles over time periods of at least 5–6 million years, and up to 14 million years.
Effects of colour vision phenotype on insect capture by a free-ranging population of white-faced capuchins, Cebus capucinus
Variations of colour vision in a New World primate can be explained by polymorphism of retinal photopigments
TLDR
Good quantitative agreement was found when the microspectrophoto-metrically measured absorbance spectra were used to predict the behavioural sensitivity of individual animals to long wavelengths and suggests that the behavioural variation arises from variation in the retinal photopigments.
Importance of Achromatic Contrast in Short-Range Fruit Foraging of Primates
TLDR
The results suggest that luminance contrast can serve as an important cue in short-range foraging attempts despite other sensory cues that could be available and the advantage of red-green color vision in primates may not be as salient as previously thought.
Evolution and selection of trichromatic vision in primates
Trichromatic colour vision in New World monkeys
TLDR
It is reported that multiple X-chromosome pigment genes and trichromatic colour vision are the norm for one genus of platyrrhine monkey, the howler monkey, Alouatta.
...
...