Luminance and contrast adaptation are neuronal mechanisms employed by the visual system to adjust our sensitivity to light. They are mediated by an assortment of cellular and network processes distributed across the retina and visual cortex. Both have been demonstrated in the eyes of many vertebrates, but only luminance adaptation has been shown in invertebrate eyes to date. Since the computati...

The complement system in vertebrates plays an important role in host defense against and clearance of invading microbes, in which complement component C3 plays an essential role in the opsonization of pathogens, whereas the molecular mechanism underlying C3 activation in invertebrates remains unknown. In an effort to understand the molecular activation mechanism of invertebrate C3, we isolated ...

We illustrate models for discrete data using the horseshoe crab dataset introduced in Sec. 1.5.1. The response variable for the n = 173 mating female crabs is y = number of " satellites " — male crabs that group around the female and may fertilize her eggs. Explanatory variables are the female crab's color, spine condition, weight, and carapace width. To illustrate the Poisson, negative binomia...

Images of aquatic invertebrates are included in a late 16th-century work, Historie Naturelle des Indes, also known as The Drake Manuscript. While the renderings are often whimsical and exaggerated, they nonetheless appear to be based on direct observations. We sought to identify these aquatic invertebrates and explore their early history. Most were identifiable to species based on the rendering...

Horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) are bled by biomedical companies for the extraction of Limulus Amoebocyte Lysate (LAL), a clotting agent used in the detection of endotoxins. In 1998, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Conunission mandated tliat all biomedical companies collecting horseshoe crabs for the production of LAL study tl1e horseshoe crab mortality rates resulting from the compan...