Development and patterning of a highly versatile visual system in spiders

Visual systems provide a key interface between organisms and their surroundings, and have evolved in many forms to perform diverse functions across the animal kingdom. Spiders exhibit a range of visual abilities and ecologies, the diversity of which is underpinned by a highly versatile, modular visual system architecture. This typically includes eight eyes of two developmentally distinct types, but the number, size, location and function of the eyes can vary dramatically between lineages. Previous studies of visual system development in spiders have confirmed that many components of the retinal determination gene (RDG) network are conserved with other arthropods, but so far, comparative studies among spiders are lacking. We characterized visual system development in seven species of spiders representing a range of morphologies, visual ecologies and phylogenetic positions, to determine how these diverse configurations are formed, and how they might evolve. Combining transcriptomics, in situ hybridization, and selection analyses, we characterize the repertoires and expression of key RDGs in relation to adult morphology. We identify key molecular players, timepoints and developmental events that may contribute to adult diversity, in particular the molecular and developmental underpinnings of eye size, number, position and identity across spiders.