Eyes wide shut: the impact of dim-light vision on neural investment in marine teleosts

Understanding how organismal design evolves in response to environmental challenges is a central goal of evolutionary biology. In particular, assessing the extent to which environmental requirements drive general design features among distantly related groups is a major research question. The visual system is a critical sensory apparatus that evolves in response to changing light regimes. In vertebrates, the optic tectum is the primary visual processing center of the brain, and yet it is unclear how, or whether this structure evolves while lineages adapt to changes in photic environment. On one hand, dim‐light adaptation is associated with larger eyes and enhanced light‐gathering power that could require larger information processing capacity. On the other hand, dim‐light vision may evolve to maximize light sensitivity at the cost of acuity and color sensitivity, which could require less processing power. Here, we use X‐ray microtomography and phylogenetic comparative methods to examine...