BICLOPS Biological Clocks in Pelagic Systems

ERC Young Investigator Group

Endogenous clocks have a key role in shaping an organism’s rhythmic life, thereby determining fitness and interactions with other organisms. In the open ocean, pelagic animals like zooplankton perform vertical migrations that actively shape the realized environmental cycles that they experience. As endogenous clocks affect migrations and environmental cycles entrain endogenous clock, this creates a paradoxical chicken-and-egg situation that in this form does not exist in terrestrial habitats.

 

The graphic shows the BICLOPS project concept
BICLOPS project concept (Graphic: Dr. Sören Häfker)

 

Research Questions
 

We want to understand how pelagic clocks do properly function in the unique interplay between their own rhythmicity, their own migration behavior and the 3D pelagic environment.

         - What mechanistic adaptation ensure proper clock functioning in the pelagic
            environment?

         - What environmental cues are central for entraining clock rhythmicity?

         - What aspects of phenotypic rhythmicity are driven by a clock, and what
            are direct responses to the environment?