We are excited to announce the symposium "A Vision of the Future:
Integrating Perspectives in the Evolution of Visual Systems" at the 3rd
Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology in Montreal on 26-30 July
2024. �Submission of talks for the symposium is open to anyone attending the
conference, and we encourage you to submit an abstract. You can register
here: https://www.evolutionmeetings.org/registration.html. 

The symposium is meant to bring together diverse perspectives and approaches
to understanding the evolution of visual systems. We hope the symposium will
facilitate productive inter-disciplinary dialogue amongst researchers
studying different aspects of vision, promoting integration and synthesis in
the field. 

Sensory systems constitute some of the most important organismal traits due
to the many critical links between sensing the environment and
fitness-related activities. Image-forming eyes provide the windows into the
visual world for most animals, and visual systems exhibit striking diversity
at multiple scales. Research in visual ecology has grown dramatically during
the 21st �century, leading to new insights into how animals have evolved
visual systems to acquire, process, and respond to visual information.
Important discoveries range from proximate effects of genes and cells to
ultimate drivers of adaptive changes in visual-system components to effects
of visual evolution on ecological interactions and speciation. Yet, these
discoveries involve studies conducted at very different biological scales
using disparate approaches in diverse taxa hence, the benefits of gathering
together for this symposium. 

This symposium aims to gather diverse researchers together, with special
focus on (1) environmental influences on variation in the visual system
(e.g. selective agents, proximate effects, genetics vs. plasticity), and (2)
studies examining visual acuity and sensitivity (i.e. visual performance);
but all relevant research is welcome! We encourage contributions to the
symposium from researchers spanning any visual-system focus (e.g. eye/pupil,
cells, genes, visual acuity), scale of analysis (e.g. phylogenetic
comparative analyses, inter- and intra-population variation, experimental
evolution, theory), selective agent (e.g. foraging behavior, predator-prey
interactions, migration, mating behavior, light availability), and more. We
further strongly encourage contributions from all dimensions e.g. career
stages, gender, nationality, etc. Please spread the word to your networks.
For questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. �

Lead Organizers: Parker Hughes (phughes@ncsu.edu) and Matt Walsh
(matthew.walsh@uta.edu)
Additional Organizers: Brian Langerhans (langerhans@ncsu.edu) and Kaj
Hulthén (kaj.hulthen@biol.lu.se)

Brian Langerhans <langerhans@ncsu.edu>

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