Heritable circadian period length in a wild bird population

Helm, Barbara; Visser, Marcel E.

Heritable circadian period length in a wild bird population

Dateien

Helm_Visser_2010.pdfGröße: 748.72 KBDownloads: 343

Datum

2010

Autor:innen

Helm, Barbara

Visser, Marcel E.

Open Access-Veröffentlichung

Open Access Green

Sammlungen

Biologie

Publikationstyp

Zeitschriftenartikel

Publikationsstatus

Published

Erschienen in

Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 2010, 277(1698), pp. 3335-3342. Available under: doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0871

Zusammenfassung

Timing is essential, but circadian clocks, which play a crucial role in timekeeping, are almost unaddressed in evolutionary ecology. A key property of circadian clocks is their free-running period length (τ), i.e. the time taken for a full cycle under constant conditions. Under laboratory conditions, concordance of τ with the ambient light–dark cycle confers major fitness benefits, but little is known about period length and its implications in natural populations. We therefore studied natural variation of circadian traits in a songbird, the great tit (Parus major), by recording locomotor activity of 98 hand-raised, wild-derived individuals. We found, unexpectedly, that the free-running period of this diurnal species was significantly shorter than 24 h in constant dim light. We furthermore demonstrate, to our knowledge for the first time in a wild vertebrate, ample genetic variation and high heritability (h2 = 0.86 ± 0.24), implying that period length is potentially malleable by micro-evolutionary change. The observed, short period length may be a consequence of sexual selection, as offspring from extra-pair matings had significantly shorter free-running periods than their half-siblings from within-pair matings. These findings position circadian clocks in the ‘real world’ and underscore the value of using chronobiological approaches in evolutionary ecology. Evolutionary ecologists study variation and its fitness consequences, but often have difficulties relating behavioural variation to physiological mechanisms. The findings presented here open the possibility that properties of internal, circadian clocks affect performance in traits that are relevant to fitness and sexual selection.

Fachgebiet (DDC)

570 Biowissenschaften, Biologie

Schlagwörter

clock, circadian, heritability, sexual selection, extra-pair, Parus major

Zitieren

ISO 690

HELM, Barbara, Marcel E. VISSER, 2010. Heritable circadian period length in a wild bird population. In: Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 2010, 277(1698), pp. 3335-3342. Available under: doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0871

BibTex

@article{Helm2010Herit-13570,
  year={2010},
  doi={10.1098/rspb.2010.0871},
  title={Heritable circadian period length in a wild bird population},
  number={1698},
  volume={277},
  journal={Proceedings of the Royal Society B},
  pages={3335--3342},
  author={Helm, Barbara and Visser, Marcel E.}
}

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