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Lack of daily heart rate rhythms in Adélie penguin chicks during the polar day

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2020

Canwei Xia Open the ORCID record for Canwei Xia [Opens in a new window]  and
Yanyun Zhang
Canwei Xia
Affiliation:
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Yanyun Zhang*
Affiliation:
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
*
Author for correspondence: Yanyun Zhang, Email: zhangyy@bnu.edu.cn
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Abstract

Daily rhythms enable organisms to adapt to daily fluctuations in environmental factors. Do organisms still exhibit 24-h rhythms when living in habitats without obvious daily cycles in external signals? To answer this question, we measured the heart rates of six Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) chicks on Inexpressible Island during the polar day between 15 and 21 January 2019. Averaged heart rates were between 186 and 233 beats/min for individual chicks. Both fast Fourier transformation and autocorrelation were employed to assess the daily rhythmicity. Based on fast Fourier transformation, a significant contribution of daily rhythm in heart rate variation was found only in one individual. Small effect size of significant autocorrelation coefficients was found in two individuals, while there was no significant autocorrelation coefficient for 24-h time lag in four other individuals. In summary, no prevailing daily rhythm of heart rate was found in these Adélie penguin chicks. We propose that the lack of daily rhythm in Adélie penguin chicks could be an adaptation to the local environment in the polar regions, but that the adaptive value thereof remains to be investigated.

Keywords

Adélie penguinsDaily rhythmHeart ratePolar day
Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 55 , Issue 6 , November 2019 , pp. 411 - 416
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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