Data from: Plasticity contributes to a fine-scale depth gradient in sticklebacks’ visual system
Cite this dataset
Veen, Thor; Brock, Chad; Rennison, Diana; Bolnick, Daniel (2017). Data from: Plasticity contributes to a fine-scale depth gradient in sticklebacks’ visual system [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.45k67
Abstract
The light environment influences an animal’s ability to forage, evade predators, and find mates, and consequently is known to drive local adaptation of visual systems. However, the light environment may also vary over fine spatial scales at which genetic adaptation is difficult. For instance, in aquatic systems the available wavelengths of light change over a few meters depth. Do animals plastically adjust their visual system to such small-scale environmental light variation? Here, we show that in threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus), opsin gene expression (an important determinant of colour vision) changes over a 2-meter vertical gradient in nest depth. By experimentally altering the light environment using light filters to cover enclosures in a lake, we found that opsin expression can be adjusted on a short time frame (weeks) in response to the local light environment. This is to our knowledge the smallest spatial scale on which visual adjustments through opsin expression have been recorded in a natural setting along a continuously changing light environment.
Usage notes
Funding
National Science Foundation, Award: IOS 1145468
Location
Canada
British Columbia