Circadian organization and mechanisms of entrainment in populations of drosophila melanogaster selected for divergent timing of eclosion

Abstract

The concept of ‘time’ has been of profound interest and a topic of debate, with deep roots in religion and philosophy, from ancient times to the present day. Some philosophers have even dismissed time as being a mental construct and ‘unreal’ (Kant, 1781; McTaggart, 1908). While a debate on the ‘nature of time’ is worthy of a thesis in itself, here I will restrict my discussion to ‘time in nature’; in other words, time in the biological world. It is not news that humans sleep at certain times of the day and eat at certain times. It is also known that we work more efficiently at only specific times of the day and less efficiently at other times (Skene and Arendt, 2006). Is such a time-dependent phenomenon restricted only to us humans or is it common to other organisms? More importantly, are such rhythms a mere consequence of the ever-alternating day and night caused due to the earth’s rotation?