Also: coral mass spawning, circalunar clock, Platynereis, dung beetle, Milky Way, moon and sleep, intertidal zone, barnacles
The Moon's light and the tides it drives set the timing of many living things, from coral spawning to worm reproduction, and even appear linked to human sleep.
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Harrison and colleagues recorded 32 coral species on the Great Barrier Reef spawning together a few nights after late-spring full moons in 1981 and 1982, releasing eggs and sperm for external fertilization.
As reported in: Harrison, Babcock, Bull et al. (1984). Mass Spawning in Tropical Reef Corals. Science. doi:10.1126/science.223.4641.1186
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Zantke and colleagues showed the marine worm Platynereis dumerilii has both a daily and a monthly (circalunar) clock in its forebrain; the monthly clock is set by night-time light and controls maturation.
As reported in: Zantke, Ishikawa-Fujiwara, Arboleda et al. (2013). Circadian and Circalunar Clock Interactions in a Marine Annelid. Cell Reports. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2013.08.031
Dacke and colleagues found dung beetles roll balls in straight lines under a starry sky but not under overcast skies, the first documented use of the Milky Way for orientation by an animal.
Publisher update notice: erratum
As reported in: Dacke, Baird, Byrne et al. (2013). Dung Beetles Use the Milky Way for Orientation. Current Biology. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.12.034
Casiraghi and colleagues used wrist monitors in communities from rural with no electricity to urban and found sleep started later and was up to 1.5 hours shorter on nights before the full moon.
As reported in: Casiraghi, Spiousas, Dunster et al. (2021). Moonstruck sleep: Synchronization of human sleep with the moon cycle under field conditions. Science Advances. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe0465
Connell studied how competition between species and other factors decide where the barnacle Chthamalus stellatus lives on the rocky shore, a classic study of intertidal ecology.
As reported in: Connell (1961). The Influence of Interspecific Competition and Other Factors on the Distribution of the Barnacle Chthamalus Stellatus. Ecology. doi:10.2307/1933500
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