Ecological correlates of variation in the visual system of frogs and toads

Abstract and about the speaker

Vertebrate vision is one of the best-studied and most richly understood of all biological sensory systems. However, much of what we know comes from detailed studies of mammals, birds, fish and to some extent reptiles. Despite their great ecomorphological diversity, the visual systems of amphibians are little-studied and poorly known. An international team of researchers has recently started to address the knowledge gap by carrying out integrative analyses of the molecular genetic, physiological and morphological diversity and evolution of aspects of the visual system of frogs. This talk will summarise recent discoveries about how relative eye size, pupil shape, and lens shape and transmission vary in frogs in the context of phylogeny and ecology.

David Gower is a Merit Researcher in London’s Natural History Museum. He is a whole-organism, collections-based herpetologist with a particular interest in systematics and the evolution of limbless, burrowing amphibians and reptiles, Triassic archosaurs, and South Asia.