Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom

The way an animal perceives its environment is fundamentally shaped by its ecology and evolution. The tempo of perception, the rate at which events can be perceived, varies widely across the animal kingdom and ranges from the rapid motion detection abilities of dragonflies to the sluggish perceptions of giant isopods. Autrum's hypothesis predicts that a species' pace of ecology drives this variation, but little is known about this relationship beyond taxon-specific cases. Here we use phylogenetic comparative methods to test the link between the tempo of visual perception and pace of ecology for 237 species, ranging from jellyfish to vertebrates. We show that higher temporal resolution is found in species with fast-paced ecologies associated with the ability to fly and with pursuit predation. We also find that the tempo of perception in ambush predators is mediated by environment context, which is probably related to the ability to act on fine-scale information. Our results highlight how ecology and the environment can shape the tempo of a species' perceptual experience.