Meeting Abstract
Understanding the evolution of complex organ systems is an important aspect of understanding the evolution of diversity. The visual system is a particularly compelling example because of the high level of morphological diversity and complexity in photoreceptive organs across the Metazoa. Our research interest is to better understand visual system evolution across the Bilateria from a developmental perspective. While complex image-forming eyes have been well studied in select deuterostome and Ecdysozoan species at a developmental, molecular and genomic level, there are no Lophotrochozoan models for which comparative analyses can be made. We aim to better understand the evolution and development of complex image-forming eyes across the Metazoa by establishing the single-chambered eye of the squid, Doryteuthis (Loligo) pealeii, as a model. We have generated a substantial amount of transcriptomic, molecular and morphological data to support these studies and are poised to address questions of conservation versus novelty, and to better understand the influence of developmental constraint on the evolution of visual systems
