Cave animals are excellent models to study the general principles of evolution as well as the
mechanisms of adaptation to a novel environment: the perpetual darkness of caves. In this …

Adaptation to life in caves is often accompanied by dramatically convergent changes across
distantly related taxa, epitomized by the loss or reduction of eyes and pigmentation …

The dominant neo-Darwinian paradigm of the evolution of cave animals is that the severe
aphotic, low food environment with little environmental cyclicity imposes strong selective …

The evolution of color vision is often studied through the lens of receptor gain relative to an
ancestor with fewer spectral classes of photoreceptor. For instance, in Heliconius butterflies …

Most of the life with which humans interact is exposed to highly rhythmic and extremely
predictable changes in illumination that occur with the daily events of sunrise and sunset …

Highlights•We reviewed current knowledge on circadian molecular clockwork in non-model
insects.•Most of known clock genes are shared among insects with some exception.•Modern …

Subterranean animals living in perpetual darkness may maintain photoresponse. However,
the evolutionary processes behind the conflict between eye loss and maintenance of the …

Light represents one of the most reliable environmental cues in the biological world. In this
review we focus on the evolutionary consequences to changes in organismal photic …

In the framework of neutral theory of molecular evolution, genes specific to the development
and function of eyes in subterranean animals living in permanent darkness are expected to …

Cave-adapted animals are characterized by extreme reduction or complete absence of
eyes, reflecting their lack of exposure to daylight. Given the overall constancy of abiotic …