Abstract

Since its beginning, life has been exposed to the regular environmental cycles caused by the regular positional changes of earth, sun and moon relative to each other. This requires and results in temporal adjustments of animal physiology and behavior. Our work focusses on the molecular mechanisms of moon-controlled timing systems and their interactions with the well-studied daily oscillator (known as circadian clock). In many marine organisms, like the bristle worm Platynereis dumerillii, moonlight sets the phase of an endogenous monthly oscillator. Some recent question we have been tackling are: How can different worms across a population reliably synchronize to the same moon phase? Does lunar timing influence daily timing? And can the study of molecular timing mechanisms of marine bristle worms help to understand some of the scientifically reported, but “just weird” correlations between human physiological/behavioral rhythms and the lunar cycle?