Color vision has evolved repeatedly across the animal kingdom, yet how and why it evolves remains poorly understood. Even less is known about how major transitions in color vision influence the evolution of color signals used in communication, such as the colorful displays that males use when courting females. The proposed research capitalizes on a unique opportunity to gain deeper understanding on these fronts: the repeated evolution of color vision in the spider family Salticidae, often called jumping spiders. The research program will (1) address outstanding questions about species relationships in the Salticidae, (2) use this improved understanding of species relationships to illuminate patterns of evolution in color vision, (3) quantify the genetic and functional bases of shifts in color vision, (4) test key hypotheses about the foraging benefits associated with color vision, and (5) investigate whether differences in color vision result in predictable changes to color use during signaling. Such connections have proven to be elusive in other well-studied systems (e.g. primates), but should be of widespread interest. In addition, the research team will partner with the science-media company Day's Edge Productions and a coalition of four museums led by the Cincinnati Museum Center to engage the broader public in the science of color and vision through a series of short films, a content-rich website, and a portfolio of educational activities for use in classrooms, community programming, and museum exhibit spaces. This integrated research program thus addresses key unanswered questions about how and why animals see color, while at the same time engaging the public in the process and outcomes of its discoveries.
The proposed research will provide significant advances across a number of distinct scientific fields, and novel insights into phenotypic diversification through integration across these fields. First, the research will provide critical new phylogenetic information for understanding salticid diversity, including resolution of deep subfamily relationships and the first phylogenies for a number of species-rich sub-groups. These phylogenetic outcomes will be of broad utility to researchers studying salticid biology and the evolution of rapid radiations. Second, by characterizing the genetic basis of multiple independent transitions to true color vision, the research will provide new opportunities to understand whether color vision evolves along common pathways known from other systems (e.g., through opsin duplication) or has followed novel routes (e.g., retinal filters, as discovered recently in one salticid lineage). Third, investigations of the role that color vision plays in foraging efficiency will offer the exciting prospect of connecting differences in color vision to fitness. Finally, by connecting variation in visual function to diversity in visual signaling, this research may reveal a central role for sensory function in biodiversification. Synthesis of these multiple lines of research will offer an unprecedented view of why color vision evolves and how it shapes animal biodiversity.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
