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Just exactly how internal clocks function in zooplankton in the open sea at the mechanistic and molecular level is the core question the BICLOPS junior research group is addressing. Over the next five years, the European Research Council (ERC) will be funding the group led by AWI biologist Sören Häfker to the tune of €1.5 million.
In the open sea (pelagic zone), countless different animal species perform daily vertical migrations, feeding near the surface at night and hiding from predators in the dark depths during the day. Due to the fact that they determine where and when different species interact in the open sea, vertical migrations play a pivotal role in structuring pelagic ecosystems. The external signals and internal mechanisms that control the behaviour of these animals, however, often remain a mystery. Almost all organisms have internal clocks that can influence when they sleep, feed or reproduce. The clocks themselves are "set" by environmental cycles, such as the day/night light cycle. However, how environmental signals are transmitted to internal clocks at the molecular level, and how the clocks then generate behavioural rhythms, for example, has hardly been studied, especially for pelagic ecosystems. In the open sea, changes in light, temperature and other parameters with increasing depth also create a somewhat unusual chicken-and-egg problem: through their vertical migrations, pelagic species directly determine the environmental cycles they are exposed to. Since internal clocks influence migrations, they themselves determine the environmental cycles that "set" them.
While the copepod Calanus finmarchicus is only a few millimetres in size, it is capable of vertically migrating several hundred metres up and down every day. Calanus plays a key role in the North Atlantic ecosystem, as these enormously numerous crustaceans feed on microalgae and themselves form the food for many larger species. Their seasonal "hibernation" at great depths, for which the copepods build up large fat reserves, plays an important role in this context. This makes Calanus a particularly worthwhile prey for herring, cod and large baleen whales, among others. The ecosystem’s functionality determines how much biomass is available for fishing, for example, and also how much CO2 is transported from the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans. However, the control of this seasonal migration, however, still remains a mystery. "Although vertical migrations are absolutely central to pelagic ecosystems, we still know very little about how they are actually regulated at the mechanistic, molecular level," reports biologist Dr Sören Häfker. "In addition, little research has been performed as to how internal clocks respond to environmental changes caused by climate change, and what consequences this has for the fitness of organisms and for ecosystems. Consequently, we need to lay the groundwork for answering such questions and making predictions for the future."
Sören Häfker now wants to close these knowledge gaps with his new BICLOPS (Biological Clocks in Pelagic Systems) junior research group at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). To this end, he will be receiving funding of around €1.5 million from the European Research Council (ERC) over the next five years. In this round of applications a total of 3,928 young researchers applied for an ERC Starting Grant, of whom 478 were successful – representing a funding rate of twelve percent. The ERC praised the BICLOPS approach of combining molecular methods and behavioural studies.
A variety of different techniques will be harnessed to find out what exactly makes copepods "tick". As Sören Häfker explains: "We are using molecular methods to determine where in the copepod's body we will find the circadian clock that generates the 24-hour rhythm. We will also investigate how the genes and proteins, on which the clock mechanism is based, interact so as to generate an endogenous rhythm that runs stably – even under the complex conditions of the open sea. In order to achieve this, we will recreate the natural conditions in the laboratory and observe how the rhythms of gene activity, metabolism and migratory behaviour change when subject to different simulated environmental cycles. This will enable us to determine how the interaction of external factors and internal mechanisms influences the animals and their migrations."
Dr Sören Häfker
+49 (0)471 4831 2360
soeren.haefker@awi.de
https://www.awi.de/ueber-uns/service/presse.html
Calanus finmarchicus
Source: David Pond
Copyright: Scottish Association for Marine Science / David Pond
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Calanus finmarchicus
Source: David Pond
Copyright: Scottish Association for Marine Science / David Pond
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