New ways from photon to behaviour: Finding new phototransduction cascades in fan worms

ended

Vision is the sense for human beings. We can imagine how the world looks like for animals with visual systems like ours. But for animals with very different visual systems this differs, such as fan worms. Fan worms from different differ in their visual systems tremendously. Some have no visible eyes at all, maybe photosensitive cells not visible without technical help. Others have simple eyes consisting of a photoreceptor and a pigment cell. Others have complicated compound eyes, possibly mediating true vision. The different species form a progressing systems for studying eye evolution. These eyes evolved independently from vertebrate and insect eyes, because they are not in the head but on head appendages called fan. These eyes use also other phototransduction cascades than vertebrates or insects. However, what the exact components are, is unknown. My proposal seeks to answer that question.