How to tell the time?
Rhythmic behaviours
Organisms need to be able to synchronize with each other and the world around them. Evolution has selected several rhythmic behaviours in organisms that correspond to solar cycles, lunar cycles, tidal cycles. In Brandon Keim's article "An Unknown Ocean: The Other Rhythms of Life" , he gives a clear understand, well as clear as we know, about these types of behaviours and how they came to be. There is a great tree diagram of the phylogeny of organisms with the cyclic behaviours for a large number of species from brown algae to fish. I will have my students read the article when I teach Option E Neurophysiology & Behaviour, Further studies of behaviour, Outline two examples illustrating the adaptive value of rhythmical behaviour patterns. They can then write an outline for two of the species that they choose from the tree diagram.