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Biological Rhythms pp 57–80Cite as

Circadian Systems: General Perspective

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Abstract

The physical environment of life is characterized by several major periodicities that derive from the motions of the earth and the moon relative to the sun. From its origin some billions of years ago, life has had to cope with pronounced daily and annual cycles of light and temperature. Tidal cycles challenged life as soon as the edge of the sea was invaded; and on land, humidity and other daily cycles were added to the older challenges of light and temperature. These physical periodicities clearly raise challenges—caricatured by the hostility of deserts by day and of high latitudes in winter—that natural selection has had to cope with; on the other hand, the unique stability of these cycles based on celestial mechanics presents a clear opportunity for selection: their predictability makes anticipatory programming a viable strategy. The result has been widespread occurrence in eukaryotic systems of innate temporal programs for metabolism and behavior that are most appropriately undertaken during a restricted fraction of the external cycle of physical change. Feeding behavior in nocturnal rodents is programmed into early hours of the night; the behavior persists at that phase—recurring at intervals close to 24 hr—in animals retained in cueless constant darkness; and mobilization of the enzymes necessary for digestion by the intestine and subsequent metabolic processing in the liver is appropriately programmed to that same (or slightly earlier) time.

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  1. Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, California, 93950, USA

    Colin S. Pittendrigh

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  1. Colin S. Pittendrigh
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  1. Max-Planck Institut für Verhaltensphysiologie, Andechs, German Federal Republic

    Jürgen Aschoff

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© 1981 Plenum Press, New York

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Pittendrigh, C.S. (1981). Circadian Systems: General Perspective. In: Aschoff, J. (eds) Biological Rhythms. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6552-9_5

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