Cargando…

Asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo

Bilateral symmetry is assumed to contribute to the evolution of eye color, with the left and right eye being the same color in most vertebrates; yet, few studies tested this assumption. Here, we compared the amount of iris flecking (black spots presented on the iris) between the left and right eye o...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Yoo, Ha-Na, Lee, Jin-Won, Yoo, Jeong-Chil
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5548743/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28790375
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08071-1
_version_ 1783255866944782336
author Yoo, Ha-Na
Lee, Jin-Won
Yoo, Jeong-Chil
author_facet Yoo, Ha-Na
Lee, Jin-Won
Yoo, Jeong-Chil
author_sort Yoo, Ha-Na
collection PubMed
description Bilateral symmetry is assumed to contribute to the evolution of eye color, with the left and right eye being the same color in most vertebrates; yet, few studies tested this assumption. Here, we compared the amount of iris flecking (black spots presented on the iris) between the left and right eye of 76 adult common cuckoos Cuculus canorus. We found considerable variation in the total amount of iris flecking among individuals, with variation being associated with body size and sex. We also found that the amount of iris flecking differed between the left and right eye and that this left-right asymmetry was not random, with the left eye almost always being darker than the right eye. Furthermore, this asymmetry was negatively associated with wing length; however, this effect was limited to individuals with dark eyes. Overall, the asymmetric, but non-random, distribution of iris flecking between the left and right eye may indicate that selection pressures driving asymmetry (such as visual lateralization) act on the development of iris colors, even though this effect might be limited, due to the role of bilateral symmetry.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5548743
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-55487432017-08-09 Asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo Yoo, Ha-Na Lee, Jin-Won Yoo, Jeong-Chil Sci Rep Article Bilateral symmetry is assumed to contribute to the evolution of eye color, with the left and right eye being the same color in most vertebrates; yet, few studies tested this assumption. Here, we compared the amount of iris flecking (black spots presented on the iris) between the left and right eye of 76 adult common cuckoos Cuculus canorus. We found considerable variation in the total amount of iris flecking among individuals, with variation being associated with body size and sex. We also found that the amount of iris flecking differed between the left and right eye and that this left-right asymmetry was not random, with the left eye almost always being darker than the right eye. Furthermore, this asymmetry was negatively associated with wing length; however, this effect was limited to individuals with dark eyes. Overall, the asymmetric, but non-random, distribution of iris flecking between the left and right eye may indicate that selection pressures driving asymmetry (such as visual lateralization) act on the development of iris colors, even though this effect might be limited, due to the role of bilateral symmetry. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5548743/ /pubmed/28790375 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08071-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Yoo, Ha-Na
Lee, Jin-Won
Yoo, Jeong-Chil
Asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo
title Asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo
title_full Asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo
title_fullStr Asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo
title_full_unstemmed Asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo
title_short Asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo
title_sort asymmetry of eye color in the common cuckoo
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5548743/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28790375
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08071-1
work_keys_str_mv AT yoohana asymmetryofeyecolorinthecommoncuckoo
AT leejinwon asymmetryofeyecolorinthecommoncuckoo
AT yoojeongchil asymmetryofeyecolorinthecommoncuckoo