UC College of Arts and Sciences Professor Elke Buschbeck and her co-authors studied photoreceptors in the eyes of bold jumping spiders, tiny eight-legged predators found across North America. The little hunters rely on their keen vision to stalk prey.
But researchers found that underfed spiders begin to lose photoreceptors that give them such good eyesight. Their findings could improve our understanding of the role that nutrition plays in common age-related vision problems such as macular degeneration.
The study was published in the journal Vision Research.