Body clocks keep ticking in the high Arctic Ocean

Scientists have discovered how the bodyclocks of tiny marine life in the Arctic summer keep ticking even when day becomes indistinguishable from night.

When the midnight sun beats down, it seems the biological clocks of minuscule marine organisms carry on regardless despite permanent daylight.

Marine biologists from Oban studying how climate change affects the Arctic found the genes of tiny shrimp-like animal plankton called copepods keep ticking even hundreds of metres under snow-covered sea ice. Indications are animals are using other signs such as tides to set their body clocks.

Researchers had previously suspected the daily cycles of biology would cease during the Arctic summer when the sun is permanently above the horizon and day and night become indistinguishable. They expected the lack of a light-dark trigger to affect the proper functioning of the circadian clocks that affect tourists and marine plankton alike.

Project leader Dr Kim Last from the Scottish Association for Marine Science, near Oban, said: ‘It’s simply astonishing to know these tiny copepods have a functioning circadian clock when they can be tens to hundreds of metres underwater and sea ice at a time when there is virtually no difference between day and night.’

Researchers also found circadian clock genes generally cycle daily, in the north and only a few hundred miles from the Pole, their clock had changed.