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Evolution of eye development in the darkness of caves: adaptation, drift, or both?
- Source :
- EvoDevo, EvoDevo, BioMed Central, 2013, 4 (1), pp.26. ⟨10.1186/2041-9139-4-26⟩
- Publication Year :
- 2013
- Publisher :
- BioMed Central, 2013.
-
Abstract
- International audience; Animals inhabiting the darkness of caves are generally blind and de-pigmented, regardless of the phylum they belong to. Survival in this environment is an enormous challenge, the most obvious being to find food and mates without the help of vision, and the loss of eyes in cave animals is often accompanied by an enhancement of other sensory apparatuses. Here we review the recent literature describing developmental biology and molecular evolution studies in order to discuss the evolutionary mechanisms underlying adaptation to life in the dark. We conclude that both genetic drift (neutral hypothesis) and direct and indirect selection (selective hypothesis) occurred together during the loss of eyes in cave animals. We also identify some future directions of research to better understand adaptation to total darkness, for which integrative analyses relying on evo-devo approaches associated with thorough ecological and population genomic studies should shed some light.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
retina
Evolution of the eye
genetic structures
lens
Population
Population biology
Review
Biology
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
03 medical and health sciences
Cave
Genetic drift
Molecular evolution
Genetics
Astyanax
education
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
030304 developmental biology
0303 health sciences
education.field_of_study
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
Ecology
population biology
Evolutionary biology
Darkness
[SDV.NEU]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]
Adaptation
transcriptome
Developmental Biology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20419139
- Volume :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- EvoDevo
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....2c500edbe80a7e57e2a908051a1ea90b