Eyes within the marine gastropod superfamily Stromboidea range widely in size, from 0.2 to 2.3 mm - the largest eyes known in any gastropod. Despite this interesting variation, the underlying evolutionary pressures remain unknown. Here, we use the wealth of material available in museum collections to explore the evolution of stromboid eye size and structure. Our results suggest that depth is a key light-limiting factor in stromboid eye evolution; here, increasing water depth is correlated with increasing aperture width relative to lens diameter, and therefore an increasing investment in sensitivity in dim light environments. In the major clade containing all large-eyed stromboid families, species observed active during the day and the night had wider eye apertures relative to lens sizes than species observed active during the day only, thereby prioritising sensitivity over resolution. Species with no consistent diel activity pattern also had smaller body sizes than exclusively day-active species, which may suggest that smaller animals are more vulnerable to shell-crushing predators, and avoid the higher predation pressure experienced by animals active during the day. Within the same major clade, ancestral state reconstruction suggests that absolute eye size increased above 1 mm twice. The unresolved position of Varicospira, however, weakens this hypothesis and further work with additional markers is needed to confirm this result.

中文翻译：

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Stromboidea（腹足纲）大眼的进化：光环境和生活史特征的影响


海洋腹足类超科 Stromboidea 的眼睛大小范围很广，从 0.2 到 2.3 毫米不等 - 这是所有腹足类动物中已知的最大的眼睛。尽管存在这种有趣的变化，但潜在的进化压力仍然未知。在这里，我们利用博物馆藏品中可用的大量材料来探索 stromboid eye 大小和结构的演变。我们的结果表明，深度是 stromboid 眼进化的关键限光因素;在这里，水深的增加与相对于镜头直径的孔径宽度的增加相关，因此在昏暗的光线环境中对灵敏度的投资增加。在包含所有大眼 stromboid 科的主要分支中，观察到的白天和夜间活跃的物种比仅在白天观察到的物种具有更宽的眼孔径，因此优先考虑灵敏度而不是分辨率。没有一致的 diel 活动模式的物种也比完全日间活跃的物种体型更小，这可能表明较小的动物更容易受到压壳捕食者的攻击，并避免了白天活跃的动物所经历的更高的捕食压力。在同一主要分支中，祖先状态重建表明绝对眼大小增加了两次超过 1 毫米。然而，Varicospira 的未解决位置削弱了这一假设，需要进一步使用其他标记来证实这一结果。