Ultra-Rapid Vision in Birds

Flying animals need to accurately detect, identify and track fast-moving objects and these behavioral requirements are likely to strongly select for abilities to resolve visual detail in time. However, evidence of highly elevated temporal acuity relative to non-flying animals has so far been confine...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2016-03, Vol.11 (3), p.e0151099-e0151099
Main Authors: Boström, Jannika E, Dimitrova, Marina, Canton, Cindy, Håstad, Olle, Qvarnström, Anna, Ödeen, Anders
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acuity
Analysis
Anatomy & physiology
Animal behavior
Animals
Biochemistry
Biology and Life Sciences
Birds
Birds of prey
Ecological monitoring
Ecology
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Ekologi
Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionsbiologi
Ficedula albicollis
Ficedula hypoleuca
Flight
Gallus gallus domesticus
Insects
Light
Metabolism
Moving object recognition
Natural selection
Physiological aspects
Physiology
Prey
Raptors - physiology
Social Sciences
Species
Temporal resolution
Vertebrates
Vision
Vision, Ocular - physiology
Zoologi
Zoology
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Summary:Flying animals need to accurately detect, identify and track fast-moving objects and these behavioral requirements are likely to strongly select for abilities to resolve visual detail in time. However, evidence of highly elevated temporal acuity relative to non-flying animals has so far been confined to insects while it has been missing in birds. With behavioral experiments on three wild passerine species, blue tits, collared and pied flycatchers, we demonstrate temporal acuities of vision far exceeding predictions based on the sizes and metabolic rates of these birds. This implies a history of strong natural selection on temporal resolution. These birds can resolve alternating light-dark cycles at up to 145 Hz (average: 129, 127 and 137, respectively), which is ca. 50 Hz over the highest frequency shown in any other vertebrate. We argue that rapid vision should confer a selective advantage in many bird species that are ecologically similar to the three species examined in our study. Thus, rapid vision may be a more typical avian trait than the famously sharp vision found in birds of prey.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0151099