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Annual, Lunar, and Tidal Clocks pp 179–199Cite as

The Clock-Work Worms: Diversity and Function of Clock Expression in Marine Polychaete Worms

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Abstract

Polychaetes are marine worms that display a surprising array of reproductive modes that are usually highly synchronized to the complex cycles of the marine environment. From the extremely long metonic (19-year) cycles of reproduction in the Palolo worm to the short ultradian tidal (12.4 h) cycles of feeding in the ragworm, polychaetes demonstrate a great diversity of entrainment to all known environmental cycles in the oceans. They are able to tell the time of the year, month, day, and tide and hence they may be considered the ultimate marine chronometers, a trait that is under strong selection pressure, ultimately increasing fitness. Polychaetes evolved before the great Cambrian explosion 600 million years ago, and hence it seems probable that their clock phenotypes and genotypes constitute the ancestral protoclock that either predates, or at least coevolved with, the circadian time piece we know so much about today.

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  1. Scottish Association for Marine Science, Oban, Argyll, PA37 1QA, UK

    Kim S. Last & Vicki J. Hendrick

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  1. Kim S. Last
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  2. Vicki J. Hendrick
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Correspondence to Kim S. Last .

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  1. Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan

    Hideharu Numata

  2. Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Barbara Helm

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Last, K.S., Hendrick, V.J. (2014). The Clock-Work Worms: Diversity and Function of Clock Expression in Marine Polychaete Worms. In: Numata, H., Helm, B. (eds) Annual, Lunar, and Tidal Clocks. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55261-1_10

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