Diel vertical migration

Diel vertical migration (DVM), also known as diurnal vertical migration, is a pattern of movement used by some organisms, such as copepods, living in the ocean and in lakes. The migration occurs when organisms move up to the epipelagic zone at night and return to the mesopelagic zone of the oceans or to the hypolimnion zone of lakes during the day. The word diel comes from the Latin dies day, and means a 24-hour period. In terms of biomass, it is the greatest migration in the world. It is not restricted to any one taxa as examples are known from crustaceans (copepods), molluscs (squid), and ray-finned fishes (trout). Various stimuli are responsible for this phenomenon, the most prominent being response to changes in light intensity, though evidence suggests that biological clocks are an underlying stimulus as well. The phenomenon may arise for a number of reasons, though it is most typically to access food and avoid predators. While this mass migration is generally nocturnal, with the animals ascending from the depths at nightfall and descending at sunrise, the timing can be altered in response to the different cues and stimuli that trigger it. Some unusual events impact vertical migration: DVM is absent during the midnight sun in Arctic regions and vertical migration can occur suddenly during a solar eclipse. Diel vertical migration (DVM), also known as diurnal vertical migration, is a pattern of movement used by some organisms, such as copepods, living in the ocean and in lakes. The migration occurs when organisms move up to the epipelagic zone at night and return to the mesopelagic zone of the oceans or to the hypolimnion zone of lakes during the day. The word diel comes from the Latin dies day, and means a 24-hour period. In terms of biomass, it is the greatest migration in the world. It is not restricted to any one taxa as examples are known from crustaceans (copepods), molluscs (squid), and ray-finned fishes (trout). Various stimuli are responsible for this phenomenon, the most prominent being response to changes in light intensity, though evidence suggests that biological clocks are an underlying stimulus as well. The phenomenon may arise for a number of reasons, though it is most typically to access food and avoid predators. While this mass migration is generally nocturnal, with the animals ascending from the depths at nightfall and descending at sunrise, the timing can be altered in response to the different cues and stimuli that trigger it. Some unusual events impact vertical migration: DVM is absent during the midnight sun in Arctic regions and vertical migration can occur suddenly during a solar eclipse. During World War II the U.S. Navy was taking sonar readings of the ocean when they discovered the deep scattering layer (DSL). While performing sound propagation experiments, the University of California's Division of War Research (UCDWR) consistently had results of the echo-sounder that showed a distinct reverberation that they attributed to mid-water layer scattering agents. At the time, there was speculation that these readings may be attributed to enemy submarines. By collaborating with biologists from Scripps Institution and the UCDWR, they were able to confirm that the observed reverberations from the echo-sounder were in fact related to the diel vertical migration of marine animals. The DSL was caused by large, dense groupings of organisms, like zooplankton, that scattered the sonar to create a false or second bottom.  Once scientists started to do more research on what was causing the DSL, it was discovered that a large range of organisms were vertically migrating. Most types of plankton and some types of nekton have exhibited some type of vertical migration, although it is not always diel. These migrations may have substantial effects on mesopredators and apex predators by modulating the concentration and accessibility of their prey (e.g., impacts on the foraging behavior of pinnipeds). There are two different factors that are known to play a role in vertical migration, endogenous and exogenous. Endogenous factors originate from the organism itself; sex, age, biological rhythms, etc. Exogenous factors are environmental factors acting on the organism such as light, gravity, oxygen, temperature, predator-prey interactions, etc. Endogenous rhythm Biological clocks are an ancient and adaptive sense of time innate to an organism that allows them to anticipate environmental changes and cycles so they are able to physiologically and behaviorally respond to the expected change. Evidence of circadian rhythms controlling DVM, metabolism, and even gene expression have been found in copepod species, Calanus finmarchicus. These copepods were shown to continue to exhibit these daily rhythms of vertical migration in the laboratory setting even in constant darkness, after being captured from an actively migrating wild population. An experiment was done at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography which kept organisms in column tanks with light/dark cycles. A few days later the light was changed to a constant low light and the organisms still displayed diel vertical migration. Thus suggestions that some type of internal response was causing the migration. Clock gene expression Many organisms including the copepod C. finmarchicus, has genetic material devoted to maintaining its biological clock. The expression of these genes varies temporally with the expression significantly increasing following dawn and dusk at times of greatest vertical migration seen in this species. These finding may indicate they work as a molecular stimulus for vertical migration. Body size