Archived Abstracts
Characterization of Opsin Gene Alleles Affecting Color Vision in a Wild Population of Titi Monkeys (Callicebus brunneus)
Authors: John A. Bunce, Lynne A. Isbell, Maureen Neitz, Daniela Bonci, Alison K. Surridge, Gerald H. Jacobs, and David Glenn Smith
The diversity of color perception within Primates is exceptional among mammals. The two most common varieties of primate color vision are trichromacy, allowing animals to routinely distinguish among colors that appear to humans as green, yellow, orange, and red, and dichromacy, in which such colors are apt to be confused with each other. Both of these varieties occur as polymorphisms in the majority of Neotropical monkeys, resulting in a rich mixture of both dichromatic and trichromatic individuals in the same population of animals. The color vision of most Neotropical monkeys is determined by gene alleles at an X-linked polymorphic locus coding for a particular retinal protein (the M/L opsin). This study genetically characterizes these alleles in a wild population of the socially monogamous Neotropical monkey Callicebus brunneus (the brown titi monkey). An earlier captive study of Callicebus suggested that these monkeys may possess an unusual number of alleles at this locus and thus may be a subject of special interest in the study of primate color vision. Sequencing of regions of the M/L opsin gene using feces-, blood-, and saliva-derived DNA obtained from 14 individuals from a wild C. brunneus population in Peru suggests the presence of three functionally distinct alleles, corresponding to the most common color vision variants inferred from the earlier study of captive Callicebus. This is the first reported characterization of color vision in a wild Callicebus population, and serves as an important starting point for investigation of how selection maintains polymorphic color vision in this genus.
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