CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 354Primate Behavior and EcologyEvolution and Paleontology StudiesComparative Animal Anatomy Studies

Evolutionary radiation of visual and olfactory brain systems in primates, bats and insectivores

Barton, R. A., Purvis, A., Harvey, P. H.·1995·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
DOI 10.1098/rstb.1995.0076
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

How brains have evolved in response to particular selection pressures is illuminated by ecological correlates of differences in brain structure among contemporary species. The focus of most comparative studies has been on the overall size of brains relative to body size, hence ignoring the ways in which selection operates on specific neural systems. Here we investigate evolutionary radiations in the size of visual and olfactory brain structures within three orders of mammals: primates, bats and insectivores. The comparative relationships within these three orders show both similarities and differences. After removal of the allometric effect of overall brain size, the sizes of different structures within each sensory modality are positively correlated in all three orders. Correlations between visual and olfactory structures, however, are negative in primates, negative but non-significant in insectivores, and positive in bats. In both primates and insectivores, nocturnal lineages tend to have larger olfactory structures than do diurnal or partly diurnal lineages, and among the primates diurnal lineages have larger striate visual cortexes. Hence the apparent trade-off between vision and olfaction in primates seems to be related to the divergence of nocturnal and diurnal forms. However, negative correlations between visual and olfactory structures were also found when nocturnal strepsirhines and diurnal haplorhines were analysed separately, suggesting that ecological variables in addition to activity timing may be significant. Indeed, there were also associations with diet: frugivory was associated with enlargements of the geniculostriate visual system in diurnal primates, enlargements of olfactory structures in nocturnal primates, and possibly enlargements of both in bats. Further ecological associations were found within insectivores: aquatic lineages had smaller olfactory structures than in their non-aquatic counterparts, and fossorial lineages had smaller optic nerves than in non-fossorial forms. We conclude that activity timing, diet and habitat have each played a role in the evolutionary radiation of mammalian sensory systems, but with varying effects in the different taxa. Some of the associations between ecology and sensory systems suggest alternative explanations for correlates of overall brain size, which have in the past commonly been interpreted in terms of selection on intelligence.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1098/rstb.1995.0076

Cites

80 of 80 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Each of many dimensions of behavioural ecology has been shown to correlate with brain size and/or with a specific and relevant aspect of brain structure.

    “Each of these and other dimensions of behavioural ecology has been shown to correlate with the brain size and/or with a specific and relevant aspect of brain structure [14–20].”

    From Embodied cognitive evolution and the cerebellum (2012) · cites this paper as [18]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 82 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Barton, R. A., Purvis, A., & Harvey, P. H.
Affiliations
  • Durham University (GB)
  • University of Oxford (GB)
ORCID
Venue
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
Publisher
The Royal Society
Published
1995-06-29
Volume
348
Issue
1326
Pages
381-392
ISSN
  • 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
  • 1471-2970
DOI
10.1098/rstb.1995.0076
OpenAlex
W2091013848
Cited by
352
References
82
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 15 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 9
FWCI
10.64
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Urology › Comparative Animal Anatomy Studies
Keywords
brain evolution, visual system, olfactory system, primates, bats, insectivores, diurnal activity, frugivory, diet, activity timing, habitat, fossoriality, aquatic adaptation, optic nerve, strepsirrhines, haplorhines
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Biological, Animals, Chiroptera, Ecology, Biological Evolution, Eulipotyphla, Mammals, Olfactory Pathways, Organ Size, Primates, Visual Pathways

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review