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A novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds

The keen visual systems of birds have been relatively well-studied. The foundations of avian vision rest on their cone and rod photoreceptors. Most birds use four cone photoreceptor types for color vision, a fifth cone for achromatic tasks, and a rod for dim-light vision. The cones, along with their...

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Autores principales: Tyrrell, Luke P., Teixeira, Leandro B. C., Dubielzig, Richard R., Pita, Diana, Baumhardt, Patrice, Moore, Bret A., Fernández-Juricic, Esteban
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6811557/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31645645
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-51774-w
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author Tyrrell, Luke P.
Teixeira, Leandro B. C.
Dubielzig, Richard R.
Pita, Diana
Baumhardt, Patrice
Moore, Bret A.
Fernández-Juricic, Esteban
author_facet Tyrrell, Luke P.
Teixeira, Leandro B. C.
Dubielzig, Richard R.
Pita, Diana
Baumhardt, Patrice
Moore, Bret A.
Fernández-Juricic, Esteban
author_sort Tyrrell, Luke P.
collection PubMed
description The keen visual systems of birds have been relatively well-studied. The foundations of avian vision rest on their cone and rod photoreceptors. Most birds use four cone photoreceptor types for color vision, a fifth cone for achromatic tasks, and a rod for dim-light vision. The cones, along with their oil droplets, and rods are conserved across birds – with the exception of a few shifts in spectral sensitivity – despite taxonomic, behavioral and ecological differences. Here, however, we describe a novel photoreceptor organelle in a group of New World flycatchers (Empidonax spp.) in which the traditional oil droplet is replaced with a complex of electron-dense megamitochondria surrounded by hundreds of small, orange oil droplets. The photoreceptors with this organelle were unevenly distributed across the retina, being present in the central region (including in the fovea), but absent from the retinal periphery and the area temporalis of these insectivorous birds. Of the many bird species with their photoreceptors characterized, only the two flycatchers described here (E. virescens and E. minimus) possess this unusual retinal structure. We discuss the potential functional significance of this unique sub-cellular structure, which might provide an additional visual channel for these small predatory songbirds.
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spelling pubmed-68115572019-10-25 A novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds Tyrrell, Luke P. Teixeira, Leandro B. C. Dubielzig, Richard R. Pita, Diana Baumhardt, Patrice Moore, Bret A. Fernández-Juricic, Esteban Sci Rep Article The keen visual systems of birds have been relatively well-studied. The foundations of avian vision rest on their cone and rod photoreceptors. Most birds use four cone photoreceptor types for color vision, a fifth cone for achromatic tasks, and a rod for dim-light vision. The cones, along with their oil droplets, and rods are conserved across birds – with the exception of a few shifts in spectral sensitivity – despite taxonomic, behavioral and ecological differences. Here, however, we describe a novel photoreceptor organelle in a group of New World flycatchers (Empidonax spp.) in which the traditional oil droplet is replaced with a complex of electron-dense megamitochondria surrounded by hundreds of small, orange oil droplets. The photoreceptors with this organelle were unevenly distributed across the retina, being present in the central region (including in the fovea), but absent from the retinal periphery and the area temporalis of these insectivorous birds. Of the many bird species with their photoreceptors characterized, only the two flycatchers described here (E. virescens and E. minimus) possess this unusual retinal structure. We discuss the potential functional significance of this unique sub-cellular structure, which might provide an additional visual channel for these small predatory songbirds. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-10-23 /pmc/articles/PMC6811557/ /pubmed/31645645 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-51774-w Text en © The Author(s) 2019 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
Tyrrell, Luke P.
Teixeira, Leandro B. C.
Dubielzig, Richard R.
Pita, Diana
Baumhardt, Patrice
Moore, Bret A.
Fernández-Juricic, Esteban
A novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds
title A novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds
title_full A novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds
title_fullStr A novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds
title_full_unstemmed A novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds
title_short A novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds
title_sort novel cellular structure in the retina of insectivorous birds
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6811557/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31645645
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-51774-w
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