To Be or Not to Be a Big-eyed Guppy
To be or not to be a big-eyed guppy—that is the question for guppies growing up under high predation risk. While larger eyes provide superior vision, they also make guppies more conspicuous to predators. By raising guppies under predation pressure and quantifying both their eye size and visual spectra, this study reveals that predation risk induces phenotypic plasticity in cone opsin expression profiles rather than eye size. This shift potentially impacts female mate choice and predator detection, while circumventing the high costs associated with larger eyes.
Read the full article, here