Our new @MolBioEvol paper w/ amazing former undergrad Jack @Chillonian investigates how environmental, developmental, & behavioural factors influence the evolution of genes that control nonvisual light responses (nonvisual opsins) across frogs 🐸. 👇

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Evolutionary analyses revealed that different activity periods, habitats, geographical distributions, developmental modes & pupil shapes have shaped the evolution of different nonvisual opsin genes suggesting they have high adaptive importance in frogs, and likely other animals

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Our findings provide insight into the diversity and evolution of nonvisual opsins across frogs, filling an important gap in our understanding and setting the stage for future research on their functions and evolution across different animals: @YorkUnews.

Evolutionary analyses revealed that different activity periods, habitats, geographical distributions, developmental modes & pupil shapes have shaped the evolution of different nonvisual opsin genes suggesting they have high adaptive importance in frogs, and likely other animals

Frogs have diverse habitats (aquatic/terrestrial), activity patterns, breeding strategies & developmental modes. We found frogs have many more nonvisual opsins than expected for a primarily nocturnal group highlighting the importance of light detection for frog behavior & ecology

Nonvisual opsin functions incl. daily biological rhythms, light-seeking behaviours, seasonal responses (eg breeding) & other undiscovered functions. We have many types of nonvisual opsins present in the eyes, brain, skin & elsewhere. But what about frogs🐸?

Opsins are proteins that form photopigments capable of detecting & responding to light. Unlike visual opsins, which are responsible for image-forming vision, non-visual opsins are responsible for many other non-image forming light-detection functions.

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Combined our results support a hypothesis of adaptive evolution in photoreceptor physiology across the frog tree of life in response to shifts in light environments and ecology. For more see the paper out today in @MolBioEvol here:

Our molecular results are corroborated by measurements of visual pigment absorbance using microspectrophotometry, which reveal highly variable spectral sensitivities, many of which cannot be explained by previously known spectral tuning mechanisms

We find remarkable diversity in frog visual opsins and evolutionary changes driven by aquatic vs terrestrial lights environments and life history changes, but surprisingly not shifts in activity pattern.