Reindeer in the North Pole does not use biological clocks

Scientists from the University of Manchester, UK have discovered mechanisms to help animals in the Arctic adapt to the day-night movements in the extreme.

In distant Arctic lands, day and night do not mean much. In half of the year, the sun never sets, and the other half is the opposite, the sun never grows.

According to a new study published today in the journal Biology, scientists from the University of Manchester have just demonstrated, the Arctic reindeer has found a solution to adapt to these harsh climatic conditions. They abandoned the use of the body's biological clock - the mechanism adapted to other day-night activities in other organisms.

Dr. Andrew Loudon, lead researcher, said: "Our findings imply that evolution has taken place by shutting down the activity of the" clock "in this reindeer species. It helps a lot for animals here, with climatic conditions that make the cycle of day and night so different. "

According to the team, hormones (such as melatonin) that control the day and night cycles, have the most impact on the nervous and eye systems, playing an important role in maintaining the body's biological cycle. .

Without the use of biological clocks, day and night do not mean much for reindeer.

However, this melatonin does not seem to be found in reindeer. Researchers point out that melatonin levels seem to be equal or even below the level of detection at daytime in these reindeer. When darkness falls, melatonin concentration completely ceases; they only reappear in the daytime.

Besides the discovery of Loudon, a colleague of Tromso University in Norway, Karl-Arne Stokkan also uses reindeer skin cells to study.

Stokkan points out, genes that are still known as body clocks do not fluctuate like other animals to keep the rhythm of time. "We suspect that reindeer is full of regular clock genes, but they are adjusted in a different way," Stokkan said.

The team also hypothesized and continued research to prove the same to other animals in the Arctic, as a mechanism of their own adaptation to the climate there.