Event Abstract Back to Event Spatial and temporal properties of photoreceptor cells in the retina of Uca pugilator, an Atlantic sand fiddler crab John Layne1* and Premraj Rajkumar1 1 University of Cincinnati, Biological Sciences, United States One of the fundamental challenges faced by sensory systems of most animals is to be able to reliably extract information from the environment. The quality of this perceived information is dictated primarily by the sophistication of the sensory system, which in turn both allows and limits the scope of animals’ behavior. In invertebrate visual systems a number of optical and neuronal adaptations have been identified that tune the retinal response dynamics specifically to match their behavioral and ecological needs. Investigating such highly derived physiological adaptations is the key to understanding how visual perception mediates and constrains actions in animals. The compound eyes of fiddler crabs are an example of a highly adapted visual design. Atlantic sand fiddler crabs (Uca pugilator) are semi-terrestrial, social creatures that rely heavily on visual information to guide behaviors like mate choice, predator avoidance, territorial and courtship interactions. It is well documented that their panoramic visual field and equatorial zone of high visual acuity are adaptations to specific visual environment. Though there has been extensive research describing their reliance on visual information, very little is known regarding the physiology and information-transmitting capacity of the system. Using intracellular recordings we measured the spatial and temporal characteristics of photoreceptor cells in different parts of the eye. We find that these properties co-vary across the retina so that the signal to noise ratio, characteristic velocity and information transfer match the pattern of graded visual resolution. Photoreceptor cells are the first step in generating visually guided behaviors, and these data show how these may be influenced by the crabs’ capacity to gain information from their surroundings. Acknowledgements This work was funded by a University Research Council Fellowship and Wieman/Wendel/Benedict Grant to P.R. and by NSF (IOS 0749768) to J.E.L. Keywords: spatiotemporal dynamics, Resolution, fiddler crab, Compound Eye, Arthropod, Photoreceptor Cells Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster presentation preferred Topic: Eye design, optics and spatial vision Citation: Layne J and Rajkumar P (2019). Spatial and temporal properties of photoreceptor cells in the retina of Uca pugilator, an Atlantic sand fiddler crab. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00093 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. John Layne, University of Cincinnati, Biological Sciences, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45221-0006, United States, john.layne@uc.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers John Layne Premraj Rajkumar Google John Layne Premraj Rajkumar Google Scholar John Layne Premraj Rajkumar PubMed John Layne Premraj Rajkumar Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.