The evolution of eyes: major steps. The Keeler lecture 2017: centenary of Keeler Ltd
Open accessAbstract
Ocular evolution is an immense topic, and I do not expect to cover all the details of this process in this manuscript. I will present some concepts about some of the major steps in the evolutionary process to stimulate your thinking about this interesting and complex topic. In the prebiotic soup, vision was not inevitable. Eyes were not preordained. Nor were their shapes, sizes, or current physiology. Sight is an evolutionary gift but it was not ineluctable. The existence of eyes is so basic to our profession that we often do not consider how and why vision appeared or evolved on earth at all. Although vision is a principal sensory modality for at least three major phyla and is present in three or four more phyla, there are other sensory mechanisms that could have been and were occasionally selected instead. Some animals rely on other sensory mechanisms such as audition, echolocation, or olfaction that are much more effective in their particular niche than would be vision. We may not believe those sensory mechanisms to be as robust as vision, but the creatures using those skills would argue otherwise. Why does vision exist at all? And why is it so dominant at least in the number of species that rely upon it for their principal sensory mechanism? How did vision begin? What were the important steps in the evolution of eyes? How did eyes differentiate along their various paths, and why?
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Lens development coincided with an increase in eye size.
“This also aligns with proposed explanations that suggest that lens development coincided with an increase in eye size (59, 60).”
From What if eye...? Computationally recreating vision evolution (2025) · cites this paper as [59]
The Devonian section describes fish eyes as relatively large for body size and having large lenses. The Formation of an eye section says lenses appeared later in eye evolution, but neither passage says eye size increased when lenses developed. (LLM, conf=0.77)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredEarly visual systems faced a fundamental trade-off between light collection and acuity, progressing from simple light-sensitive patches to cup-shaped eyes with smaller apertures.
“Early visual systems faced a fundamental trade-off between light collection and acuity, progressing from simple light-sensitive patches to cup-shaped eyes with smaller apertures (59, 60).”
From What if eye...? Computationally recreating vision evolution (2025) · cites this paper as [59]
The “Formation of an eye” section (page not provided) describes a progression from light-sensitive eyespots to concave cups that provide spatial information, then to cups whose sides form a pinhole. It does not describe a trade-off between light collection and acuity or explicitly link smaller apertures to that trade-off. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 9
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What if eye...? Computationally recreating vision evolution
Tiwary, K., Young, A., Tasneem, Z., Klinghoffer, T., Dave, A., Poggio, T., Nilsson, D.-E., Cheung, B., & Raskar, R. (2025) · Science Advances · doi:10.1126/sciadv.ady2888 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“This also aligns with proposed explanations that suggest that lens development coincided with an increase in eye size ( 59 , 60 ).”
- Authors
- Schwab, I. R.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Davis (US)
- Corresponding author
- Schwab, I R
- ORCID
- Schwab, I R
- Venue
- Eye
- Published
- 2017-10-20
- Volume
- 32
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 302-313
- ISSN
- 0078-5334 (ISSN-L)
- 0950-222X
- 1476-5454
- PMC
- PMC5811732
- OpenAlex
- W2766779061
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 0.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Eye (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Ocular Disorders and Treatments
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Retinal Development and Disorders
- Keywords
- eye evolution, evolution of vision, sensory modalities, echolocation, olfaction, auditions
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Biological Evolution, Eye, Eye Proteins, Vision, Ocular, Evolution, Molecular, Biodiversity
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