Sensory processing of the aquatic environment: Proceedings of a symposium

The way in which other animals perceive their environment is very different to our visually dominated sensory experience of the world. This is nowhere more obvious than underwater, and although we now frequently visit this world with SCUBA and submersible, we still mainly attempt to decode underwater information from visual cues. As light may not travel more than a few millimetres in murky water and at
best travels less than a kilometre in clear oceanic water, this is a severe limitation. As a result, aquatic animals often invest more in detecting sound and odour, both of which are effective over long ranges. Some animals can even use changes in the Earth’s magnetic ¢eld to migrate long distances and use electroreception to detect the nervous impulses of otherwise hidden organisms. This collection of short papers, all from leading experts in sensory systems, examines some of the problems facing aquatic animals all which need to detect the world around them and some of the fascinating solutions which have evolved to solve these problems.