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Multi-million funding boost for research into the origin and evolution of vision

ERC Advanced Grant: “From light detection to vision – revealing diversity of function of simple eyes and light-responsive behaviours to enlighten eye evolution”. Professor Gaspar Jekely, Neuroscience expert from the University of Exeter has been awarded the prestigious funding to investigate the origin and evolution of vision across the animal kingdom.

Professor Gaspar Jekely, from the University of Exeter’s Living Systems Institute, has received a grant of more than €3 million to conduct pioneering new research into how nervous systems interpret light cues. ´The substantial funding was awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) under its 2020 Advanced Grants scheme. Professor Jekely’s research is one of 209 grants awarded to across Europe.  Professor Jekely’s project, called PROTOEYE, will use cutting edge light and electron microscopy to reconstruct the entire nervous system - including the eyes - of several marine planktonic organisms.  

The research will also develop new technologies to study how these planktonic animals respond to light - an important signal of their surroundings to orient in the open ocean.  Professor Jekely said: “I am very delighted and grateful to have received this substantial funding from the ERC, which will allow me to address fundamental questions about eye evolution and to dissect the neuronal bases of light-driven behaviours in marine animals."  “The ERC funding will allow my laboratory to extend our collaborations and work together with scientists in the US, UK, EU and Taiwan on an unconventional and curiosity-driven project. I am very excited and looking forward to embarking on this five-years research journey.” 

The full title of Professor Jekely’s research is “From light detection to vision – revealing diversity of function of simple eyes and light-responsive behaviours to enlighten eye evolution”

Complex animal eyes evolved many times independently from simpler forms. As already suggested by Darwin, the path to vision may have led from non-directional to directional light sensing and then to low-resolution spatial vision. Simple eyes in extant animals show a remarkable diversity of form and function and may hold the key to the origin of eyes and vision. We do not know why this diversity evolved when the organisms all respond to the same physical cue. Although we have a detailed molecular-centric view of eye evolution across animals, we lack corresponding knowledge of the physical mechanics and neuronal circuits coordinating the responses.

PROTOEYE will study the diversity of simple non-visual and visual eyes and map the phase space of light-guided behaviours across animals. This will inform general principles of sensory system evolution and our understanding of the origin and evolution of eyes and visual circuits. The project will build on our long-term expertise in neural circuits and mechanistic photo-biology. We will study a range of aquatic invertebrates with distinct behavioural strategies, unified by the presence of simple eyes and non-visual photoreceptors. Instead of looking at eyes in isolation, we will investigate light responses from a whole-organism perspective focusing on circuits, behaviour and the biophysics of motion.

In order to obtain entire neuronal circuits driving photic behaviours, we will use whole-body serial electron microscopy and connectomics. With laser ablation, we will explore strategies of light-seeking or light-avoidance behaviours. In high-throughput behavioural assays we will test navigation strategies and sensitivities to different wavelengths. With high-speed imaging and flow tracing, we will investigate how animal movement is shaped by light. This comparative and multi-disciplinary project will chart the functional diversity of simple eyes and provide a new framework for understanding the evolution of animal vision.

Summary of the experimental program of PROTOEYE.

We will study several invertebrate larvae with simple eyespots and light-regulated behaviours. In high-throughput assays, we will characterise light-regulated behaviours. To investigate eye function and mechanisms of steering, we will use eye ablations and other manipulations. We will combine this with whole-body synapse-level electron microscopy (EM) reconstructions of eye circuits from nanometer resolution serial EM datasets. This will allow us to analyse entire visual connectomes in the context of whole-body circuits and effector systems. We will combine this with biophysical investigations of larval swimming and light-regulated responses. For example, we will measure cilia-generated flows and how they change under light. With EM and light microscopy, we will map the distribution and orientation of all cilia in larval bodies and generate computer simulations of cilia-generated flows. These data will allow us to model swimming trajectories and how they change in various light environments. Finally, we will compare visual circuits and light-guided behaviours across organisms to reconstruct the origin end early evolution of animal eyes.

Speaking at the announcement of the Advanced Grants, ERC President Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon said: “For this last ERC call under Horizon 2020, over 200 researchers will be funded to follow their scientific instinct and dreams. Still, the great increase in demand led to a very fierce competition: only 8% of candidates were successful. We look forward to seeing what major insights and breakthroughs will spring from this investment and trust. "

The Living Systems Institute is the University of Exeter research flagship. The Institute combines biological and physical sciences to make discoveries that will transform future healthcare Living Systems Institute | Living Systems Institute | University of Exeter.

Contact Details

Gáspár Jékely

Gáspár Jékely
Professor of Neuroscience

Living Systems Institute
University of Exeter

Exeter, EX4 4QD, UK

Phone: +44(0)1392 727453
Twitter: @JekelyLab
Website: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/livingsystems/team/profile/index.php?web_id=Gaspar_Jekely