Moonlight Mass Migration of Zooplankton/ Curr. Biol., Jan. 7, 2016 (Vol. 26, Issue 2)

2,050 views · Published 7 January 2016 · 8:27 · Indexed 30 October 2026

Channel: Cell Press · 2016 · Science & Technology

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Zooplankton in all oceans undergo vertical migrations away from the surface during the day to avoid predation. Here, Last et al. find that during the permanently dark Arctic winter, moonlight, not sunlight, drives migrations, which are in synchrony with the altitude and phase of the moon. These newly termed lunar vertical migrations (LVMs) occur across the entire Arctic Ocean, from shallow fjords to the deep ocean.

Check out the paper at http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(15)01432-3.

Last, K.S., Hobbs, L., Berge, J., Brierly, A.S., and Cottier, F. (2016). Moonlight drives ocean-scale mass vertical migration of zooplankton during the Arctic winter. Curr. Biol. 26.

And read more great research at http://www.cell.com/current-biology/home.

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